Yesterday, Saturday morning, the national police confiscated the phone of our colleague Ahmed Ould Mohamed El Mostapha, known as Al Nada, editor-in-chief of the Al Akhbar website, and harassed him while he was at the “Madrid” junction covering protests by public-transport tuk-tuk drivers following the recent rise in fuel prices.
We, the Executive Board of the Mauritanian Journalists’ Union, affirm our solidarity with our colleague Al Nada. We condemn this conduct and call on the national security services generally and the riot police in particular to refrain from harassing journalists while they perform their professional duties and from confiscating possessions needed for professional journalism...
The Executive Board reaffirms its rejection of this conduct, which is entirely inconsistent with the freedom of journalistic work guaranteed by the Constitution and all international conventions and established practices.
Nouakchott, 17 July 2022
The Executive Board