Assassination attempt on winner of the Weimar Human Rights Award.

As the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) reported on Friday, the winner of the Weimar Human Rights Award 2011 has just about escaped an assassination attempt on Wednesday in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott. A police officer of the youth-protection department had joined a demonstration that the human rights activist Biram Dah Abeid had also taken part in. Suddenly, the officer drew his pistol and aimed at Dah Abeid. The activist's bodyguards overpowered the assassin before he could fire a shot. When the crowd threatened to lynch the attacker, the police intervened and took their colleague into custody.

The offender is a member of the ruling class of the Moors, who are against the human rights movement to liberate Black African slaves. "It's not surprising that Biram Dah Abeid was supposed to be killed by a police officer who should be responsible for the protection of minors," said the STP's expert on questions regarding Africa, Ulrich Delius. "He was especially unpopular in this commissariat, because he repeatedly urged the police forces there to take action against slaveholders and to campaign for the liberation of slaves."

The city of Weimar had honored Biram Dah Abeid with the Human Rights Prize on December 10, 2011, because he had fought for the release of some 500,000 black African slaves in Mauritania despite being in danger himself. Shortly before his award, it had become known that Mauritania's generals had planned to murder the uncomfortable admonisher.

While Biram Dah Abeid is treated with hostility by many slaveholders and their allies in administrations, within the police forces and among politicians, the civil population of Mauritania honors him for his dedication. On Tuesday, the Arabic-language Mauritian daily newspaper "El Jedid Emel" had elected the human rights activist to be "Man of the Year 2011".