UN, AU call for calm as death toll in Senegal violence rises

The United Nations and the African Union have called for calm after the conviction of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko led to one of the deadliest acts of violence in recent years.

Authorities deployed the army to the streets of the capital, Dakar and other cities as the death toll rose to 10. Nine people were killed on Thursday after Sonko was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of corrupting youths, which left him may ban it from participating in the 2024 presidential election.

Another person died in fresh clashes in the restive southern region of Casamance on Friday when protesters attacked a police barracks, a government spokesman told TFM television.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the violence and “urged all involved … to exercise restraint,” a spokesman said.

The AU said the committee’s chairman, Moussa Faki Mahamat, strongly condemned the violence and urged leaders to avoid acts that “tarnish the face of Senegalese democracy, of which Africa has always been proud”.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called on all parties to “defend the country’s laudable reputation as a bulwark of peace and stability”.

The European Union and France, Senegal’s former colonial power, also expressed concern about the violence.

Senegalese government spokesman Abdou Karim Fofana said the violence was not fueled by “political demands”, but “acts of vandalism and banditry”.

“These are difficult times for the Senegalese nation that we will overcome,” he told TFM.

Social media limited

Several social media and messaging platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have been restricted to restrict online communication, with the government saying it had restricted access to stop “the spread of hateful and subversive messages”.

However, rights organization Amnesty International has condemned the restrictions, describing them as an attack on freedom of expression.

“We condemn the restrictions on access to social media by the Senegalese authorities following violent protests,” Samira Daoud, Amnesty International’s regional director for West and Central Africa, said in a statement.

“These restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and information constitute arbitrary measures that violate international law and cannot be justified on security grounds,” she added.

The NGO Reporters Without Borders also called on the authorities to fully restore internet access.

“Social-political violence should not be used as a pretext to limit the right to information,” it said.

Christopher Fomunyoh, of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, said there was clear political motivation in the lawsuits against Sonko.

“The Senegalese people have a culture of dialogue and commitment to their freedoms, and to now see politically motivated demonstrations that [loss of] lives is really unacceptable and unprecedented,” he told Al Jazeera.

“On the one hand, the government has now deployed the Senegalese army on the streets – something that is also very unprecedented – and on the other hand, Sonko and his supporters are determined to take to the streets to make their voices heard,” he says. continued.

“My hope is that the Senegalese religious leaders and civil society can step in and try to mediate between the two sides that will eventually have to make concessions and create a conducive environment for meaningful, inclusive and credible presidential elections to take place in February 2024. ”

Eligibility questions

Sonko was charged with rape and making death threats against an employee of a beauty salon in Dakar in 2021.

However, the court acquitted him of these charges and convicted him of “debauchery” of a person under the age of 21, without clarifying the immoral acts he allegedly committed.

Under electoral law, the verdict appears to make him unfit for next year’s election.

Sonko insists he is innocent and claims the president is trying to trick him into keeping him out of next year’s election – a charge the government denies.

The case has deeply divided Senegal, which is normally a bastion of stability in West Africa.

Sonko, who was tried in absentia, has yet to be taken into custody for his prison sentence, which is likely to create further tensions.

Sonko is believed to be staying at his home in Dakar, where he has been locked up by security forces since the weekend. He claims he is being “illegally detained”.