Mauritanians call for arrest of president’s son

An initiative called “No to Pornography” set off on a demonstration in Nouakchott on Sunday evening, calling for the reopening of an investigation on Badr Ould Abdel Aziz, the Mauritanian President’s son, along with two young men who accompanied him during the shooting of the girl Rajaa Al-Talib, who is currently receiving treatment in Morocco. The initiative called for detaining the three men involved in the accident and reopening investigation based on the possibility of them being under the influence of alcohol at the time, in addition to “breaching public security”. The initiative also condemned the procrastination of the Regulatory Authority and the three communication networks in Mauritania with regards to banning pornographic websites on the internet. It announced that if no measures were taken to ban the websites within a month, they would file a law suit against the Regulatory Authority and the three network companies, in addition to organising a boycott campaign. The ‘No to Pornography’ initiative was announced by a youth group in Nouakchott two months ago. The group declared their intention to organise protests calling for ‘morality police’, to counter the ‘moral decadence’ they believe is spreading in Mauritania. Such decadence, according to the initiative, was due to the lack of action by civil society organisations and authorities to ban pornographic websites and alcohol, which “found its way among Mauritanians with the invasion of foreign culture.”