Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid ( ar, بيرام ولد الداه ولد اعبيدي; born 12 January 1965) is a
Mauritania
Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...
n politician and advocate for the
abolition of slavery
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
.
He was listed as one of "10 People Who Changed the World You Might Not Have Heard Of" by PeaceLinkLive in 2014, and by ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People".
He has also been called the "Mauritanian Nelson Mandela" by online news organisation Middleeasteye.net.
A leader of the international anti-slavery movement, Abeid has been arrested and imprisoned several times by Mauritanian authorities. His case has been taken up by
Irwin Cotler
Irwin Cotler, PC, OC, OQ (born May 8, 1940) is a retired Canadian politician who was Member of Parliament for Mount Royal from 1999 to 2015. He served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until the Liberal gov ...
and the
Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) is a Montreal-based non-governmental organization dedicated to pursuing justice through the protection and promotion of human rights. The RWCHR's name and mission is inspired by Raoul Wallenbe ...
.
Early life
Biram was born in 1965 in a village called Jidrel Mohguen in Rosso,
Trarza
Trarza ( ar, ولاية الترارزة) is a region in southwest Mauritania. Its capital is Rosso. Other major cities and towns include Mederdra and Boutilimit. Trarza borders the regions of Inchiri and Adrar to the north, Brakna to the east, a ...
. Though his father Dah, who ran a small business in Mauritania and Senegal, was granted freedom from slavery as an act of benevolence, his mother remained enslaved. Dah was unable to convince his first wife's master and the Islamic judicial authority in Mauritania to free her from slavery, due to insufficient finances. Even the French colonial governor of the time refused to interfere with matters that fell under Islamic law.
As Abeid grew up, he attended high school in the city of
Rosso
Rosso is the major city of south-western Mauritania and capital of Trarza region. It is situated on the Senegal River at the head of the river zone allowing year-round navigation. The town is 204 km south of the capital Nouakchott. The Ar ...
in 1979, where the social inequalities, also present in his native village, were more prominent. He became more aware of how the caste system, which separated the black masses from the other tribes, denied the marginalized communities access to education and employment, and further impeded their ability to ever gain independence.
When he was 19 years old, Abeid started a movement called National African Movement, to fight discrimination, and often advocated against the mistreatment of black people by writing open letters to the Secretary of State. At the age of 28, he had to interrupt his studies due to financial struggles and ended up participating in municipal elections during this time. However, after three years, he decided to return to school and went on to obtain a master's degree in history. He then trained as a lawyer in Mauritania and in Senegal.
Life as an activist and politician
It was in the year 2007 that
Zeine Ould Zeidane
Zeine Ould Zeidane ( ar, الزين ولد زيدان) (born 1966)
Agence Mauritanienne d'Information, April 21, 2007 . ...
, former presidential candidate, offered Abeid work on his political program, advocating for the abolition of slavery and against discrimination. Abeid accepted the offer and in the same year, following a hunger strike held together with three other activists, Mauritanian government officials arrested three women accused of holding children in slavery in the capital, Nouakchott. This was the first time in Mauritania that someone was charged with the crime of slavery
since the practice was criminalized by law in 2007.
Later in 2008, Abeid founded the
Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement The Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA or IRA-Mauritania; French: ''Initiative pour la Resurgence du mouvement Abolitioniste'') is an anti-slavery group in Mauritania headed by Biram Dah Abeid. Mauritania is estimated to ...
(IRA-Mauritania), which he defines as "an organization of popular struggle", and where he serves as president.
Abeid sees his abolitionist mission as making slaves—who are isolated by illiteracy, poverty, and geography—aware of the possibility of a life outside servitude. He believes that slaves are tied to their masters not only by tradition and economic necessity, but also by "a misinterpretation of Islam" that teaches that slavery is not illegal but governed by religious law.
He argues that
there is a kind of informal coalition—Beydanes he slaveowning caste the state, police, judges, and imams—that prevents slaves from leaving their masters. "Whenever a slave breaks free and IRA is antislavery groupis not aware and not present, police officers and judges help Arab Berbers to intimidate the slave until he returns in submission."
In 2010, Abeid was discharged from his duties as a Senior Adviser to the President of the National Commission for Human Rights in Mauritania for continuously voicing slavery issues.
[ He was also threatened with prosecution and imprisonment for "illegal activities" if he did not suspend his active role in the fight against slavery.]
He was also arrested, detained, and tortured in December 2010 during a dispute between the police and his group, when about eighty of his activists descended on the house of an owner of two slave girls, demanding that the owner be jailed. Abeid told the police that "we would not leave until you free the girls and put these criminals in jail."
On 6 January 2011, along with two other activists, Abeid was sentenced to twelve months in prison. He was imprisoned in February 2011 and then pardoned by Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz
Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz ( ar, محمد ولد عبد العزيز ''Muḥammad Wald 'Abd al-'Azīz''; born 20 December 1956) is a former Mauritanian politician who was the 8th List of heads of state of Mauritania, President of Mauritania, in of ...
.
Later, in August 2011, the Mauritanian police violently suppressed a sit-in in front of the police brigade over their 'employment of minors against the law'. Abeid and ten other IRA activists were injured and hospitalized in the Kissi clinic in Nouakchott.
In April 2012, during a demonstration in Nouakchott
, image_skyline = Nouakchott.jpg
, image_caption = City view of Nouakchott
, pushpin_map = Mauritania#Arab world#Africa
, pushpin_relief = 1
, mapsize =
, map_caption ...
, Abeid's group was accused of burning early Islamic legal texts of the Maliki
The ( ar, مَالِكِي) school is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It was founded by Malik ibn Anas in the 8th century. The Maliki school of jurisprudence relies on the Quran and hadiths as primary ...
school of Islamic law
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the ...
that permitted slavery. The burnings caused a considerable uproar. The President called for Abeid's death and even promised to administer the penalty himself. Abeid's phone and internet service were cut off, and he was imprisoned with other IRA activists. Later, the NGO apologized for the incident. After several months of detention and the cancellation of their trial, the group was released on bail on 3 September 2012, following pressure from the European Union.
In May 2013, Biram Dah Abeid received the Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk from the Irish NGO Front Line Defenders, and in December 2013, he received the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights
The United Nations Prizes in the Field of Human Rights were instituted by United Nations General Assembly in 1966. They are intended to "honour and commend people and organizations which have made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and pr ...
.
He also stood as an opposition candidate in the 2014 Mauritanian presidential election, but lost to the incumbent, Abdel Aziz.
On 11 November 2014, Abeid and sixteen other IRA-Mauritanie anti-slavery activists were arrested for protesting against the repeal of charges against a slave master who raped a 15-year-old girl that worked as his slave.
Hearings of the case took place on 15 January 2015, when Abeid, along with two other activists, was sentenced to two years in jail. An appeal was rejected in August 2015.
On 17 May 2016, the Supreme Court of Mauritania reached the decision to immediately release Abeid, along with fellow activist Brahim Bilal Ramdhane.
In August 2018, Abeid was imprisoned on an "order from above" intended not only to silence him and criminalize his freedom of expression, but to prohibit his participation in the September parliamentary elections, in which he was running as an anti-slavery, opposition candidate. Despite the efforts of the Mauritanian authorities, Abeid was elected to Parliament from his prison cell in September. Following his illegal detention and ascension to Parliament, he proclaimed: "I will do everything possible to demonstrate that slavery, racism and torture are set up as a system of management by a small entity around a very corrupt head of state." Abeid has since declared himself a presidential candidate in the June 2019 elections. On 22 June 2019, he clinched 18.58% electoral votes, behind Mohamed Ould Ghazouani
Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed Ould Ghazouani ( ar, محمد ولد الشيخ محمد أحمد ولد الغزواني; born 4 December 1956), also known as Ghazouani and Ould Ghazouani, is a Mauritanian politician and retired Mauritanian A ...
(52.01%) and ahead of Mohamed Ould Boubacar (17.87%).
Awards and recognition
* 2013 - Front Line award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk from Front Line Defenders
* 2013 - United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights
The United Nations Prizes in the Field of Human Rights were instituted by United Nations General Assembly in 1966. They are intended to "honour and commend people and organizations which have made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and pr ...
* 2017 - Prix Mémoires partagées, from Mémoires et Partages
* 2019 - Honorary doctorate at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven
KU Leuven (or Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven, Belgium. It conducts teaching, research, and services in computer science, engineering, natural sciences, theology, humanities, medicine, ...
)
See also
* Abolition of slavery timeline
The abolition of slavery occurred at different times in different countries. It frequently occurred sequentially in more than one stage – for example, as abolition of the trade in slaves in a specific country, and then as abolition of slavery ...
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abeid, Biram Dah
Living people
Abolitionists
Mauritanian Muslims
Mauritanian politicians
1965 births
People from Rosso