(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has urged the Mauritanian authorities to explain the arrests of journalists Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Ebilmaali and Mohamed Ould Abderrahmane in the course of anti-Islamist police raids. Ould Ebilmaali was detained on 19 May 2005, while Abderrahmane was detained on 25 April. “Arresting journalists is serious and requires the utmost transparency,” the organisation […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has urged the Mauritanian authorities to explain the arrests of journalists Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Ebilmaali and Mohamed Ould Abderrahmane in the course of anti-Islamist police raids. Ould Ebilmaali was detained on 19 May 2005, while Abderrahmane was detained on 25 April.
“Arresting journalists is serious and requires the utmost transparency,” the organisation said. “Counter-terrorism raids are no justification for the use of the most repressive police methods and detaining people secretly.”
“If Ould Ebilmaali has been imprisoned to make him reveal his sources or to punish him for interviewing the leader of an Islamist movement, we must voice our disapproval and call for his immediate release. On the other hand, if he and Abderrahmane are being held in prisons in Nouakchott for non-political crimes, the authorities must say so at once,” RSF added.
The editor-in-chief of the independent daily “Akhbar Nouakchott”, Ould Ebilmaali also writes for the Arabic-language edition of the daily “Nouakchott-Info” and is a stringer for the German public radio station Deutsche-Welle.
In a statement calling for Ould Ebilmaali’s release, his newspaper said he was “abducted” from his home on the morning of 19 May by “men in turbans who identified themselves as police officers.” Local sources said his colleagues believe he was arrested for publishing an interview on 9 May with Jemil Ould Mansour, an Islamist opposition leader who is wanted by police.
Abderrahmane works for the Mauritanian public television station. Since his arrest during an anti-Islamist raid on 25 April, RSF has tried without success to find out what he is charged with.
In late April, the authorities carried out several raids on Islamist groups, accusing their leaders of being linked to foreign organisations such as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), an Algerian armed group linked to Osama Bin Laden.
