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Torture Detainees were frequently tortured shortly after arrest and during interrogation.
•In Mauritania alone an estimated 100,000 men, women and children are enslaved. They are property to be inherited, given as gifts, forced into marriage and sexually abused. Anyone whose mother is a slave is born into slavery. Brutality and torture are common. For minor offences slaves can be flogged with a wet cord or starved for days. Slaves who try to escape have been buried in the sand and covered with hot coals. When slaves grow too old and feeble to work they are often emancipated and left to die. Although slavery is technically illegal in Mauritania none of this is punishable by law.
Slavery In August, slavery was made a criminal offence. Although officially abolished in 1981, evidence indicated the continued existence of the practice. Under the new law, slavery is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine. Two trials took place of people suspected of belonging to an unauthorized organization and “putting the country at risk of foreign reprisals”. Most of those tried were arrested in 2005.
Excessive use of force In November, the security forces fired live bullets at secondary school students protesting at increases in food prices. •Eighteen-year-old Cheikhna Ould Taleb Nava was killed when the security forces opened fire on protesters in Kankossa in the south-east.
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