Nouakchott gives provisional freedom for detained Islamists

News reports in Nouakchott said that Mauritania's authorities issued a decision on Monday for temporary freedom for 41 detained Islamists leaders and activists held since 4 months under pretext of conspiring against the constitutional regime in the country. But the detainees rejected this provisional freedom despite the fact they had left the prison.

Of most remarkable among the Islamists is the young Sheikh Muhammad al-Hassan Weld al-Dodo. The decision came upon the release of the chairman of the opposition People's Front party and the former Presidential candidate al-Shabeih Weld al-Sheikh Maa' al-Ayeneen.

These development, however, come at a time when the country is preparing to launch Presidential elections after two and a half months.

In a telephone call with al-Jazeera TV from Brussels, the chairman of the Mauritania forum for reforms and democracy, the opposition member Muhammad Jamil Bin Mansour, said that the decision of Mauritania's authorities falls in the course of preparation for the presidential elections which all indicators show that it marks the end of a phase and the beginning of another, as he alleged.