After three weeks of being blocked in Mauritania, the Arabic-language news site Anbaa.info has now been formally shut down by the authorities in Nouakchott. The decision was communicated on Monday, August 25, to the site's publication director, Cheikh Ahmed Lamine, by the head of the cybercrime brigade of the Mauritanian gendarmerie. The journalist was informed that the summons stemmed from complaints filed against Anbaa.info by the public prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Communication, and the High Authority for Press and Audiovisual (HAPA). The three institutions accuse the website of «seeking to damage relations between Mauritania and Algeria». The charges are based on articles already published by Anbaa.info concerning ties between Algiers and Nouakchott. The cybercrime brigade further instructed the publication director that posting content on Anbaa.info's social media accounts is also prohibited. These bans bring an end to weeks of uncertainty. At first, the Mauritanian authorities told the site's director that Anbaa.info «was not blocked», later suggesting instead that the platform had been targeted by a «cyberattack». This is not the first time Anbaa.info has faced sanctions. In March 2024, HAPA reprimanded the site for «attacking Algeria», making it inaccessible to Mauritanian internet users for 60 days, citing the dissemination of «false information» about Algeria. Earlier, in January 2023, the Algerian embassy in Nouakchott had accused part of the local press of being «in the pay of a hostile state», in an implicit reference to Morocco. The embassy alleged that «the recruitment of these sites is done through visas, leisure trips, advertising, corruption, and sums of money intended for mercenaries of the pen, who have neither credibility nor influence on public opinion». As far back as September 2021, Algeria's then-ambassador to Mauritania had requested HAPA to take measures against local media outlets deemed «hostile» to Algiers' positions, particularly on the Western Sahara issue.
