(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed indignation over the indictment and imprisonment of freelance journalist Mohamed Lemine Ould Mahmoudi. Mahmoudi was charged with “damaging the public image” of Mauritania after he interviewed a young woman identified by a local NGO as a runaway slave. “When a journalist seeks to obtain an individual’s story, he is committing […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed indignation over the indictment and imprisonment of freelance journalist Mohamed Lemine Ould Mahmoudi. Mahmoudi was charged with “damaging the public image” of Mauritania after he interviewed a young woman identified by a local NGO as a runaway slave.
“When a journalist seeks to obtain an individual’s story, he is committing neither a crime nor an offence, he is merely doing his job,” said RSF. “Once again, as this case begins to take on disturbing dimensions, we call for [Mahmoudi’s] immediate release and the closure of this file. It is Mohamed Lemine Ould Mahmoudi’s persecution which damages Mauritania’s public image, not his reporting.”
According to information received by RSF, Mahmoudi appeared before an investigating judge on 16 March 2005. He was sent to a prison in Rosso, southern Mauritania, after being charged with “damaging the diplomatic and economic image” of Mauritania and “producing documents inclined to disturb public order”.
Two women arrested with Mahmoudi, Aïchetou Mint El Hadar and Moya Mint Boyah, were also charged with the same offences. They have been sent to the women’s prison in the capital, Nouakchott. Their lawyers have not yet been allowed to access their files.
