The death of nine people this Thursday in clashes between demonstrators and police in Senegal have not stopped the crowd that has once again taken to the streets to protest against the two-year prison sentence of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko. Sonko, who is Senegalese President Macky Sall's fiercest adversary, was acquitted of rape charges but found guilty of "corruption of minors", a conviction that would bar him from running in the 2024 presidential election.
"We note with regret the violence that led to the destruction of public and private property, and unfortunately to nine deaths in Dakar and Ziguinchor (south)," Interior Minister Antoine Félix Diome said at a press conference early this morning. Friday in the Senegalese capital. At the same press conference, Diome announced the government's decision to temporarily suspend social networks "through which violence and hatred are called."
Groups of young people who took to the streets Thursday in Dakar and other cities across the country hurled stones, burned vehicles and in some places erected barricades as police fired tear gas at them. The University of Dakar became the focus of violence in the capital, but there were also clashes and looting of public property in Ziguinchor, in the south, where several people died, in Mbour and Kaolack, in the west, or Saint- Louis, in the north of the country.
Sonko, who is the strongest candidate against the current president and who came third in the 2019 elections, was accused of raping a woman who worked in a massage parlor and threatening to kill her, charges for which he has been acquitted. However, he has been convicted because the woman, with whom he had sexual relations, was under 21, a crime that falls under the category of "corruption of minors."
"This verdict is the end of the plot hatched by Macky Sall and his henchmen," Sonko's party, Pastef, reacted in a press release, calling on the Senegalese to "go out into the streets" and ordered the forces to join them. .
Sonko's supporters say it is a plot to prevent their leader from running for office and that the accusations are unfounded. However, the government has declared that justice works impartially.
Sonko, who was tried in absentia, is still at his residence in Dakar, awaiting arrest. "[Sonko's] arrest can take place at any time, without delay," said Ismaïla Madior Fall, Senegal's justice minister.
