Mauritania: Referring detainees in the “foreign bloggers” file to justice

On Wednesday, the Mauritanian police referred more than 15 detainees in the file known locally as the “foreign bloggers” file to the Public Prosecution in Nouakchott, at the beginning of presenting the case to the judiciary for decision, after about a month and a half of investigations, which the Mauritanian authorities linked to the state security case.

During the arrival of the detainees to the buildings of the Palace of Justice in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian authorities imposed strict security measures, as riot police units cordoned off the perimeter of the palace and prevented citizens from approaching and gathering in the place.

The file began when, in late September, the Mauritanian authorities launched an arrest campaign that included relatives of opposition bloggers residing abroad, in addition to journalists, owners of exchange offices, intermediaries, and brokers in the real estate market.

According to local media sources, the investigations involved members of the Economic Crimes Police, due to the large amount of money that investigators monitored while tracking what was said to be an extortion network targeting officials and dignitaries in the country.

The government said that it was a security campaign targeting a “financial blackmail network,” which manufactures and disseminates false news, undermines people’s honor, and finances threats, blackmail, and “buying silence.” Meanwhile, the government spokesman announced at the end of last September that the authorities “will not tolerate” violating privacy and blackmailing people.

Bloggers and opponents denied the charges made by the government, describing the arrests as “retaliatory” and pressure on families to silence critics and opponents abroad. Sidi Ould Akmache, an opposition blogger whose brother and sister were arrested, said the goal of the campaign was to silence all opposition voices.

The opposition "Rescue Forces Coalition" demanded accountability for everyone, rejected arrest on the basis of kinship, and demanded the immediate release of all detainees, while the lawyer of a number of detainees said in the file that he was prevented from contacting the detainees.

In a statement, the Public Prosecution said that the last paragraph of Article 58 of the Criminal Procedure Code excludes those suspected of state security and terrorism crimes from contacting their lawyers during custody, stressing that it will ensure that guarantees and guard deadlines are respected.

Although Mauritania abolished prison sentences for publishing crimes in 2011, and has been topping the press freedom index in the Arab world for years, Reporters Without Borders says that the law protecting national symbols, which Mauritania ratified in 2021, may be used to obstruct journalistic work.

Mauritania fell in the organization’s press freedom ranking from 50th to 61st out of 180 countries in 2026, while on April 16, the international organization documented at least four cases of police violence against journalists covering protests in Nouakchott.

However, the Mauritanian government affirms its keenness to protect freedom of the press in the country, but at the same time it rejects the exploitation of social media for financial blackmail, threatening national unity, and spreading what it calls hate speech.

A tanker truck driver was injured multiple times, and his assistant died, according to local sources, in a bombing that targeted a truck that was moving, yesterday, Tuesday, in the buffer zone, on the border between Mauritania and Morocco, according to what local sources confirmed.

A local source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the truck driver arrived late yesterday evening in the city of Zouerate, in the far north of Mauritania, where he was taken to the hospital to receive treatment, without specifying the nature of his injury or its level of severity.

According to the same source, the driver confirmed the death of his assistant, noting that the truck was bombed by a drone and was completely destroyed, describing his escape from death as a miracle.

The local story indicates that the truck was transporting quantities of smuggled fuel from an area in the far north of Mauritania, towards another Mauritanian region, but it lost its way and crossed the border to enter the buffer zone, where it was bombed.

Meanwhile, a number of Mauritanians are active in smuggling fuel from areas under the control of the separatist Polisario Front, supported by Algeria, to market it in northern Mauritania, benefiting from the price difference, as fuel prices have risen in Mauritania in recent months due to the ongoing war in the Middle East.

There was no official comment from the Mauritanian government or Morocco regarding the bombing of the Mauritanian truck, while Moroccan media sources spoke of a military mission carried out by a Moroccan drone against a hostile target behind the sand wall.

This is not the first time that Mauritanians, or trucks in this region, have been subjected to drone bombing. In December 2023, four Mauritanians who were prospecting for gold were killed in a drone bombing in the buffer zone in the Sahara.

Gold prospectors are considered the most affected because of their constant risk of crossing the northern borders of Mauritania, despite repeated warnings issued by the Mauritanian government and its repeated demands to stop prospecting outside the borders.

The head of the Mauritanian Prospectors Union announced last June that the Mauritanian authorities had given prospectors in the border area a deadline to evacuate, as part of a strategy to remove prospectors from the border strip.

In early November, the Mauritanian authorities issued warnings to farmers, herders, and gold prospectors against approaching the northern border, coinciding with the end of the mission of the forces of the United Nations peacekeeping mission, MINURSO.

The latest incident comes after the end of the United Nations mission “MINURSO”, as the Security Council failed, on October 30, to renew its mandate, as Russia vetoed an American project that received 11 votes, and China, Pakistan and Somalia abstained from voting, and a Russian project did not reach the necessary nine votes.

The United Nations began liquidating the mission on the first of November, and Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said that the departure of the mission “does not mean the end of the ceasefire,” and that his country will respect its commitments, amid fears of a collapse of the situation in the region.

Meanwhile, Nouakchott says that its position on the Sahara issue is based on “complete positive neutrality,” and that it is “part of the solution, not of the problem,” according to government spokesman Mohamed Ould Banna, during statements last week.