The demise toll within the Senegal violence has risen to fifteen as supporters of convicted opposition chief Ousmane Sonko and police continued to conflict, the federal government mentioned on Saturday.
Whereas Dakar was calmer on Saturday, clashes continued into the night. In residential neighbourhoods, protesters threw rocks at police, barricaded roads and burned tyres. The military patrolled the streets as police fired tear fuel on the demonstrators, inspecting and detaining individuals deemed to be inflicting hassle.
The clashes first broke out on Thursday, after Sonko was convicted of corrupting youth however acquitted on expenses of raping a girl who labored at a therapeutic massage parlour and making demise threats towards her. Sonko, who didn’t attend his trial in Dakar, was sentenced to 2 years in jail. His lawyer mentioned a warrant had not but been issued for his arrest.
Sonko got here third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is standard with the nation’s youth. His supporters preserve his authorized troubles are a part of a authorities effort to derail his candidacy within the 2024 presidential election.
Sonko is taken into account President Macky Sall’s major competitors and has urged Sall to state publicly that he won’t search a 3rd time period in workplace.
The worldwide neighborhood has referred to as on Senegal’s authorities to resolve the tensions.
Rights teams have condemned the federal government crackdown, which has included arbitrary arrests and restrictions on social media. Some social media websites utilized by demonstrators to incite violence, reminiscent of Fb, WhatsApp and Twitter, have been suspended for almost two days.
They’ve blamed the federal government for the violence and the lack of lives.
Corrupting younger individuals, which incorporates utilizing one’s place of energy to have intercourse with individuals under the age of 21, is a prison offence in Senegal, punishable by as much as 5 years in jail and a effective of as much as $6,000.
Underneath Senegalese legislation, Sonko’s conviction would bar him from operating in subsequent yr’s election, mentioned Bamba Cisse, one other defence lawyer. Nevertheless, the federal government mentioned Sonko might ask for a retrial as soon as he was imprisoned. It was unclear when he can be taken into custody.
Sonko has not been heard from or seen for the reason that verdict. In a press release on Friday, his PASTEF-Patriots social gathering referred to as on individuals to “amplify and intensify the constitutional resistance” till President Sall leaves workplace.
Authorities spokesman Abdou Karim Fofana mentioned the injury attributable to months of demonstrations had value the nation hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. He argued the protesters posed a risk to democracy.
“These calls [to protest], it’s a bit just like the anti-republican nature of all these actions that conceal behind social networks and don’t imagine within the foundations of democracy, that are elections, freedom of expression, but additionally the assets that our [legal] system gives,” Fofana mentioned.