DAKAR, Senegal – The most widespread demonstrations in Senegal in years continued for the third day on Friday, an expression of anger at the president, Macky Sall, and outrage at the arrest of the country’s leading opposition figure, who was accused of rape .
In Dakar, the capital, crowds of young people threw stones at the police, who fired tear gas. In the residential neighborhood of Medina, a police van sped through a cluster of protesters, almost running over them. In Ngor, a fishing village close to the city’s trendiest neighborhood, protesters lit fires in the streets.
One person died on Thursday when security forces used live ammunition on protesters in Bignona, a city in the south of the country, according to human rights organization Amnesty International.
The arrest of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko on Wednesday was the trigger for young Senegalese, many of whom support Sonko, to take to the streets. Sonko, who came in third in the 2019 presidential election, was accused of raping a young woman who worked in a massage parlor.
But protesters on Friday voiced a series of complaints: few job opportunities, pandemic-induced economic difficulties and a president they considered arrogant, incompetent and dictatorial. “We are so tired,” said Coumba Traoré, a young businesswoman emerging from the demonstration in the city center, noting especially her frustration at the 9 pm curfew imposed to contain the pandemic.
The young woman accusing Sonko of rape appeared at a closed hearing last month, but her case has not yet been tried. Mr. Sonko denies the charge.
Protesters see the case as part of a government pattern eliminating political opponents.
At stake, they say, is democracy hard-won by the country.
That’s how the current president, Macky Sall, came to power in 2012: a youth movement thwarted his predecessor’s efforts to seek a third term.
But after nine years with Sall in power, “a deep crisis in our democracy” was exposed this week, Felwine Sarr, a Senegalese historian, wrote, adding that the event “prides itself on being exemplary, always comparing itself to less than those of success on the continent. ”
Cheikh Oumar Cyrille Touré, a well-known rapper also known as Thiat, said in a televised debate on Wednesday: “Nothing is working in this country as long as they continue to give us political speeches.”
He was co-founder of the group Y’en a Marre (We’re Fed Up), which was instrumental in bringing Sall to power. But Touré was arrested on Friday during the protests and, according to the group Y’en a Marre on Facebook, violently beaten.
Two television stations, Sen TV and Walf TV, were taken off the air, accused by the government of calling for an uprising by showing uprising images.
Protesters on Thursday attacked the buildings that house two other media organizations, RFM and Le Soleil, both considered pro-government.
Mr. Sonko was arrested on Wednesday en route to the court. His train was stopped and the police asked him to take a different route. When he refused, he was arrested.
Amnesty International said Sonko was arbitrarily arrested and urged the government to stop arresting opponents and activists.
During Sall’s tenure, two of his main opponents, a mayor of Dakar and the son of the last president, were also arrested and jailed.
Sonko’s supporters say the Senegalese president is behind his arrest and rape charges. They say he is trying to prevent one of his biggest political opponents from running in the next election, in 2024.
“That’s why he’s doing all of this,” said Serigne Fallou Sarr, a biology student who was protesting on Friday in Dakar.
He said he had no idea whether the rape charges were true.
The voice of the woman who accused Mr. Sonko was drowned in a sea of accusations and conspiracy theories.
The woman, a young masseuse who said that Sonko also threatened to kill her, told police that the politician, who admitted to being a frequent visitor to the massage parlor where she worked, often asked him for sex and when she refused, strangled and raped him -The.
The president denied having anything to do with the rape charges in an interview with France24 television, broadcast before this week’s protests.
“We shouldn’t confuse the president with things that don’t concern him,” he said, referring to himself in the third person. “I think I have enough things to do without plotting such low things.”
Sall did not comment on reports that he could run for a third term, which his opponents say would violate the constitution.