In December 2013, Mohammed Mkhaitir published the first blog post of his life. In the blog he criticized the religious justification for slavery, a practice that is still prevalent in his home country of Mauritania. The next month he was arrested and sentenced to execution by firing squad.
An appeal court finally struck down his death sentence in November 2017, commuting it to two years. However, as soon as the verdict was read, rancorous protests broke out in the court room, calling for Mohammed’s death. Mohammed, his lawyers, and the judges were escorted out of the building under police protection. Almost immediately, the government placed Mohammed in an unknown location, ostensibly for his own safety, but with extremely limited communication with the outside world. He was kept in a house for 24 hours a day as his health and mental state worsened.
Freedom Now, our law firm partner Dechert LLP, and NGO colleagues launched public and private initiatives to secure Mohammed’s release from legal limbo. In June 2017, the Working Group found his detention to be arbitrary and called for Mauritania to immediately release him, in response to a petition we filed on his behalf. We brought international attention to Mkhaitir’s case by filing an allegation letter with the African Commission Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, joining partner NGOs in issuing letters to President Aziz, filing two allegation letters to the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges, and lawyers, providing expert analysis to a journalist from Newsweek and facilitating a letter from four U.S. Senators calling for Mkhaitir’s release.
Finally, in the early morning hours of July 29, 2019, Mohammed was taken to France where he has now started a new life. He remains a fierce proponent as the president of Enlightened Without Borders, an NGO he created to fight religious persecution and defend the rights of women.