Mauritania: police violence against journalists, promises of protection yet to materialise

Photojournalist Mohamed Abdallahi Moustapha, from the private news agency Al Akhbar, told RSF that police confiscated his camera and microphone before assaulting him: “A group of officers surrounded me and started beating me. The beating continued until they were sure they had moved me well away from the protest area.” 

During the same demonstration, Sahara 24 journalist Fatimatou Snabou and her two colleagues — who were clearly identifiable as journalists — were arrested by riot police. As soon as the cameraman began filming, he was reportedly struck on the knee and his equipment was confiscated. “They took us to the Tevragh Zeina police station without any official explanation,” she said. Mohamed Vadel, director of Sahel TV, reported that his team also had their equipment confiscated, though they were not physically assaulted, and they got their equipment back at the end of the demonstration.

Worse still, journalist Itawel Oumrou Mohameden el-Moustapha, also from Al Akhbar, was attacked twice in the space of eleven days. On 16 April, police snatched his phone while he was live on air, as RSF was able to confirm by reviewing the footage. “The broadcast continued for several minutes after the phone was taken, capturing the moment when a police officer handed the phone to his superior.” Earlier, on 5 April, while covering protests against rising fuel prices in Nouakchott, the country’s capital, police confiscated both his personal phone and the agency’s phone. Shortly afterwards, his computer account was reportedly targeted by hacking attempts originating from police premises, prompting the journalist to file a complaint with the Mauritanian Data Protection Authority (APDP) under the law on personal data protection.

Commitments made by Mauritanian authorities

In October 2025, at a regional conference on the Right to Information in the Sahel held in Dakar, Mauritania — represented by its Minister of Culture and government spokesperson, El Houssein Ould Medou — made a formal commitment to RSF to support the Declaration on the Right to Information in the Sahel, and in particular, to put an end to physical attacks on journalists and to guarantee their freedom to cover social movements. These commitments echoed those made by the President of the Republic during an official meeting with an RSF delegation in May 2025.

Mauritania ranks 50th out of 180 countries and territories in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index.