Dakar — Two antislavery activists freed from prison in Mauritania vowed to rescue their nation from one of the world’s worst slavery rates, saying jail and torture were no deterrent. Mauritania was the last nation to abolish slavery, outlawing it in 1981, and more than two in every 100 of its people still live as slaves, according to the 2018 Global Slavery Index. Human rights groups say the government has made no effort to stamp it out and arrests those who speak out against it. Abdallahi Matallah Saleck and Moussa Biram were jailed for their alleged role in a protest and charged with inciting riots and rebellion. They spent two years in a remote desert prison where they say they suffered horrible abuse. "They tortured us, they did everything they could so that we would back down. But we will never, ever back down," Biram told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Less than a week after being released, the two men were back on the streets of the capital Nouakchott, encouraging f...
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