Amid chants of "Allahu akbar", huge and angry crowds gathered outside the Supreme Court in Mauritania on Tuesday demanding the execution of a man who complained about religion being used to justify social discrimination.
In December 2013 engineer Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir wrote an article for a website about Mauritania's caste system, including prejudice against the low-status blacksmith class. His article also referred to similar practices in the time of the Prophet.
Two days after the article appeared Ould Mkhaitir was arrested and has been in jail ever since. His family reportedly disowned him, his marriage was dissolved on grounds of apostasy and his lawyer abandoned him. A Mauritanian businessman also offered a substantial reward for anyone who succeeded in killing him. [al-bab.com] Read more
