Yahoo Finance Senegal opposition MP released on bail as protests rock country
A prominent Senegalese opposition figure has been released on bail pending a rape trial in a case that has ignited mass outrage at President Macky Sall’s government and led to the worst unrest in a decade.
Ousmane Sonko, a charismatic 46-year-old opposition leader and MP who finished third in the 2019 presidential election, was arrested last Wednesday after an employee of a beauty salon accused him of raping her.
He denies the allegation and his supporters believe it is the latest in a line of moves orchestrated to prevent popular figures such as Sonko from challenging Sall’s government in elections.
Thousands of largely young people have taken to the streets in the past week, leaving at least eight dead in clashes between protesters and police and bringing parts of the capital, Dakar, to a halt. Many observers say protesters are venting wider frustrations about unemployment, inequality and corruption in one of west Africa’s most stable democracies.
Senegalese MPs are controversially granted immunity from arrest, fuelling accusations that Sonko’s detention was politically motivated. Two other prominent rivals of Sall were previously targeted by criminal charges that prevented them from running for president in 2019.
Sonko, a former presidential candidate and government tax inspector, has galvanised many Senegalese people, particularly the young. He rose to prominence in 2015 after releasing documents he said exposed political corruption in Sall’s ruling Alliance for the Republic party and criticising Senegal’s economic reliance and relationship with former colonial power France.
Military tanks patrolled Dakar’s streets on Monday morning in a show of force. Outside court groups of Sonko supporters cheered the judgment as a “partial victory”. Despite his release, protests called by his Movement to Defend Democracy party (M2D) are expected to continue.
On Friday, at least four people died, according to police, including a 20-year-old student, amid an aggressive response by security forces who have shot live rounds and teargas.
Video footage posted on social media at the weekend showed a police vehicle speeding into a crowd of protestors and groups of men carrying clubs attacking demonstrators. Some protestors were seen throwing stones and bottles at officers, and some looted French-owned stores in an affluent part of Dakar.
Several demonstrators and opposition supporters have been arrested in a troubling crackdown by authorities, according to Ousmane Diallo, a researcher at Amnesty International in Senegal.
“There are serious concerns about excessive and lethal use of force by the security forces during … [the] protests, but also about arbitrary arrests of supporters of Ousmane Sonko in the weeks before,” he said. “Counter-protesters holding sticks and clubs were seen in many places, attacking protesters, while the police was watching,” he added.
Last Thursday, two independent TV stations were suspended for 72 hours by the media regulator, which accused them of excessively reporting on the protests in their coverage, a move Diallo said was “shocking to many in Senegal, a country that has prided itself for its respect of freedoms and liberties, especially freedom of expression”.
Social media users have reported restrictions on accessing the internet from Senegalese networks. Usage of Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Telegram plummeted last week according to NetBlocks, an internet observatory.
Posts on social media under the hashtag “FreeSenegal” have trended in Nigeria, Ghana and other countries in a continent where young populations are increasingly vocal in their opposition to political elites accused of suppressing democracy and changing constitutions to extend their terms.
In 2010 Sall led mass protests when the then president, Abdoulaye Wade, sought a third term. Yet now, many of Sonko’s supporters increasingly fear that the president, a key French ally, is now also seeking to extend his own rule beyond his second term – a prospect leaders in West Africa have increasingly embraced.
Economic suffering in part wrought by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic has caused misery. Markets and local industries such as tourism are depressed and many are struggling to find work.
A 9pm curfew has tanked Senegal’s bustling night-time economy, deepening resentment of the government. Sall retains significant popularity after overseeing years of high economic growth before the pandemic, yet his government has faced increasing criticism for a lack of progress on poverty and inequality, and import-friendly policies seen as benefiting French corporate interests.
Some protesters have looted and vandalised French stores and petrol stations in Senegal, as significant anti-government and anti-French sentiment has unravelled into the streets.
The unrest and deep discontent has rocked the country. Sonko’s supporters have called for three days of nationwide protests this week, though his release could help ease tensions.
