NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Three anti-slavery activists jailed in Mauritania are "prisoners of conscience" and should be freed immediately, Amnesty International said Friday.
Biram Dah Ould Abeid, Cheikh Ould Abidine and Aliyine Ould Mbareck Fall were arrested last month after they reported that a female government worker was keeping two girls, one age 9 and the other 14, as household workers, the group said. They have been sentenced to a year in jail.
The three men are members of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement in Mauritania. The group has been trying, unsuccessfully, to win official recognition from the government.
Prosecutors alleged some members of the group assaulted police after the girls were brought to a police station for questioning.
"Those jailed are prisoners of conscience, detained solely on the basis of their actions in the struggle against slavery," said Erwin van der Borght, Africa Director at Amnesty International.
Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981, one of the last countries in the world to do so, and only made it a crime in August 2007. The treatment of the three activists shows the country wants to hide the practice, van der Borght said.
