Senegalese journalist Pape Alé Niang, a critical voice towards the government, was once again taken into custody on Saturday July 29. “He is being prosecuted for calling for insurrection,” his lawyer, Moussa Sarr, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The journalist had already been arrested in 2022 after the publication of one of his columns.
Arrested on Saturday morning, Mr. Niang “decided to immediately observe a hunger strike”, added his lawyer. His arrest comes the day after that of the main political opponent, Ousmane Sonko, whom the Senegalese justice accuses, among other things, of “theft”.
Boss of the Dakar Matin news site, Mr. Niang spoke of Sonko’s arrest on Friday in a video broadcast live on social networks. In another case, the journalist was arrested last November and then in December after being accused of “disclosing information likely to harm national defense” and “spreading false news” in a column about Mr. Sonko. The journalist had already observed a hunger strike before being released in January and placed under strict judicial control.
The main opponent charged
Ousmane Sonko was charged Saturday with calling for insurrection and other crimes and misdemeanors, which “have nothing to do” with the sex scandal for which he was convicted in June and which caused serious unrest.
Mr. Sonko was arrested on Friday for “violently stealing a female policeman’s mobile phone” and for “immediately calling on the people, through a subversive message leaked on social media, to be ready”, according to the prosecutor .
The version that Mr. Sonko published on social networks before his arrest is quite different. He accused security forces present outside his home of having filmed him, and said he then “snatched the phone and asked the person (…) to erase the images they took”, which the latter refused to do. “I ask the people to stand ready to face this endless abuse,” he concluded in his message.
Ousmane Sonko is to be questioned by a judge on Monday, one of his lawyers told AFP. The judge will decide whether or not to retain the charges against him.
The opponent had been sentenced on June 1 to two years in prison in a morality case, a verdict which makes him ineligible as it stands, underline his lawyers and jurists. His conviction in early June caused the most serious unrest in years in Senegal, which left 16 dead according to the authorities, around thirty according to the opposition.
Ousmane Sonko portrays President Macky Sall as a potential dictator, while supporters of the head of state call him an agitator who sows instability. Macky Sall announced at the beginning of July that he would not ultimately seek a third term, after months of ambiguity on this subject.