and Article 18 × Article 18: Every citizen has the duty of protecting and safe-guarding the independence of the country, its sovereignty and the integrity of its territory. Treason, espionage, and defecting to the enemy as well as all infractions committed with prejudice to the security of the State shall be punished with all the rigor of the law. of the 1991 Constitution and its legal basis in Articles 4, 25 and 26 of the Law of 25th July 1991 relative to political parties. 64. In this context, Article 11 × Article 11: Parties and political groups shall work together for the formation of the expression of the political will. They shall be formed and shall engage in their activities freely, provided that they respect democratic principles and that, through their objectives or by their actions, they not undermine the national sovereignty, the territorial integrity and the unity of the Nation and of the Republic. The law shall determine the conditions for the creation, the functioning and the dissolution of political parties. of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania stipulates: âPolitical parties work towards the formation and the expression of political will. They form and exercise their activities freely on condition that they respect the democratic principles and do not jeopardise, either by object or by action, national sovereignty, territorial integrity and the unity of the nation and of the Republic. The law fixes the conditions for the creation, operation and dissolution of political parties.â 65. Article 18 × Article 18: Every citizen has the duty of protecting and safe-guarding the independence of the country, its sovereignty and the integrity of its territory. Treason, espionage, and defecting to the enemy as well as all infractions committed with prejudice to the security of the State shall be punished with all the rigor of the law. of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania puts down all offences committed, which are prejudicial to the security of the State. 66. Article 4 of the Decree No. 91 â 024 of 25th July 1991 relative to Political Parties reads as follows: âPolitical parties are prohibited all propaganda against the principles of Islam. Islam cannot be the exclusive prerogative of any political party. In their statutes, programmes, in their speeches and in their political activities, political parties are prohibited from: • Any form of incitement to intolerance and to violence; • Organisation of demonstrations likely to compromise public order, peace and security; • Any transformation aimed at establishing military or paramilitary organisations or armed militia or combat groups; • Any propaganda with the objective of causing prejudice to territorial integrity or to the unity of the nationâ 67. Article 25 of the Decree No. 91-024 of 25th July 1991 relative to political parties makes it possible for a political party to be dissolved if the latter violates the rules, which govern it. 68. The Respondent States argues that it is on the basis of these two texts that the political party UFD/Ere nouvelle received its legal sanctioning and was able to carry out its activities normally. These two texts, one of which has a constitutional value and the other an organic value, fix the framework for the activities of political parties as organs for participation in the democratisation of public life and determine the modalities of the sanctions to be imposed in case of transgression of the constitutional requirements and the legal rules governing the activities of political parties in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. 69. Pertaining to the dissolution of the UFD/EN, the Respondent State alleges that the lack of direction and extremism of this Party was such that the dissolution was not only justified but also necessary in view of the danger that it represented for the State and for social peace. 70. The Respondent State insists that the UFD/EN, because of its radicalism, constituted a grave threat to public order and seriously threatened the rules of the democratic game. In this context it was quite 8