Freedom Fighter: A Slaving Society And An Abolitionist's Crusade

Freedom Fighter: A Slaving Society And An Abolitionist's Crusade
Mauritania opposition politician, presidential candidate, and anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid speaks with an AFP journalist during an interview, on the last day of the national presidential election campaign, in Nouackchott, on June 19, 2014. AFP PHOTO / SEYLLOU (Photo credit should read SEYLLOU/AFP/Getty Images)
Mauritania opposition politician, presidential candidate, and anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid speaks with an AFP journalist during an interview, on the last day of the national presidential election campaign, in Nouackchott, on June 19, 2014. AFP PHOTO / SEYLLOU (Photo credit should read SEYLLOU/AFP/Getty Images)

Two springs ago, Biram Dah Abeid arrived home in Nouakchott, the desert capital of Mauritania. At the airport, he was welcomed by hundreds of supporters, along with his wife and children. Abeid, the founder of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement, is the most prominent antislavery activist in Mauritania, which is said to have the highest incidence of slavery in the world. It was Friday, the holiest day of the week, and Abeid, returning from a trip to Berlin and Dakar, was enraged. Recently, he had helped force the government to put a slave owner in prison, and he had learned that the man was released after less than two months.

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