Prosecutors at a Mauritanian appeal court have requested 13 anti-slavery activists have their sentences increased to 20 years each for protesting against a forced slum clearance, a judicial source said. Defence lawyers for the activists from the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) had called this week for the case to be thrown out saying their clients were tortured in police custody. The activists were intially sentenced to between three and 15 years at their trial in the capital in August, on charges of using violence, attacking security forces, gathering while armed and membership of an unrecognised organisation.
