Senegalese security forces on Friday fired tear gas at protesters in the capital, as mounting anger over the postponement of a presidential election claimed a first death.
A student was killed in the northern town of Saint-Louis, according to associates of the man, as protests spread around the West African country. Police fired tear gas to stop demonstrators getting to the Place de la Nation in central Dakar, where a rally had been planned. Hundreds of demonstrators threw stones at police and set fire to tires.
Anger has mounted since Senegalese President Macky Sall postponed a presidential election scheduled for Feb. 25 until December.
Photo: AFP
“The situation is deplorable. We came to pray and we got gassed. It’s intolerable,” Thierno Alassane Sall, one of the 20 candidates who had been due to vie for the presidency, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Clashes spread to other areas of the capital, closing main roads, rail lines and main markets. Demonstrations also took place in other towns, according to social network reports.
The death of the student in Saint-Louis was confirmed to AFP by a local hospital source speaking on condition of anonymity and an official at the university the student attended.
Police also dispersed a protest by about 200 people in Nioro du Rip, about 250km east of Dakar, an AFP reporter saw.
Authorities have not given a toll for the week of protests.
The president said that he postponed the election because of a dispute between parliament and the Constitutional Council over potential candidates who were not allowed to stand.
Sall said in July last year he would not stand again and has repeated that commitment several times. However, opponents have accused him of a “constitutional coup” by delaying a new vote and keeping himself in power. The postponement has been criticized by the US and the EU.
The Senegalese parliament backed the move after security forces stormed the chamber and removed some opposition deputies.
The crisis has called into question the West African nation’s reputation for democratic stability in a region beset by military coups.
Protests usually require authorization and rights advocates say authorities have routinely banned opposition demonstrations. Since 2021, dozens of people have been killed and hundreds arrested during unrest in the country.
“Senegalese must show their anger, and not just on social media,” said the candidate Thierno Alassane Sall, who is no relation to the president.
Teachers were urged to walk out by education unions within the civil society platform Aar Sunu Election (Let’s Protect Our Election).
At Blaise Diagne high school in Dakar, hundreds of pupils walked out of lessons with their teacher.
History and geography teacher Assane Sene said it was just the start of the battle.
“If the government is stubborn, we will have to try different approaches,” Sene said.
At the Masjidounnour mosque in Dakar, 37-year-old Amadou Sy told AFP: “The message hasn’t got through enough. But the situation in the country is deplorable, nobody’s happy.”
The vote by lawmakers to delay the election paves the way for Sall — whose second term expires in early April — to remain in office until his successor is installed, probably next year.
A new date for the presidential election has been set for Dec. 15.
The opposition has condemned Sall’s move as a “constitutional coup.”
On Friday, 14 opposition candidates lodged an appeal against the move with the Supreme Court.
However, Sall is showing no signs of backing down, Le Soleil daily deputy editor Sidy Diop said.
However, he added that the head of state is “in a very bad position.”
If civil society and the opposition “manage to impose a balance of power unfavorable to the government and rally the international community, the president may then back down,” he added.
International pressure may also have an impact, said Alassane Beye, a lecturer-researcher at the University of Saint-Louis.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
RSS