“It’s unheard of,” a lawyer wonders, her hand over her mouth. “It drives you crazy,” agrees one of his colleagues, sitting on a bench in the Dakar court. One after the other, they came out of the offices of the investigating judges. Several have volunteered to assist those arrested during the protests that swept through Senegal in early June after the conviction of opponent Ousmane Sonko for “corruption of youth”. “Since this morning, we have placed everyone under MD [warrant of deposit]”, underlines one of them, Me Ndeye Coumba Kane.
In a June 13 statement, Abdou Karim, the Dakar public prosecutor, said 410 people were arrested in the capital for “their participation in the demonstrations”. Apart from minors and demonstrators whose involvement he considers “lesser”, the prosecutor declares having opted “for the full rigor of the law in the prosecution”.
“For the majority, they are prosecuted for undermining state security, calling for insurrection, words or acts likely to discredit the institutions of the Republic,” says Me Kane. “For certain offenses which particularly affect state security, the prosecutor has the latitude to oppose any release”, she adds to explain the refusal of provisional release to many detainees.
What add to the concern of the relatives of those arrested. Dozens of parents are waiting in front of the “Cave” of the prosecution, a day prison where the detainees wait to be informed about the proceedings against them. Some visitors, exhausted, shelter from the sun under the stairs, others are almost lying in the shade of the trees after a day watching for news of their loved ones.
In Rebeuss prison
At the slightest metallic noise from the building’s gate, part of the crowd approaches. An elderly man attempts to slip a bag of bananas through the gates to an officer heading inside. His interlocutor asks his colleagues if “the hour has not passed” before finally picking up the package.
Kiné Konaté, rosary around his neck, converses in the middle of a small group of men. Neighbors also came to inquire about the fate of a friend or relative. It was only that day that she was finally able to find traces of her nephew, Serigne. Arrested on the first day of the protests, when his workmates “had finished dropping him off in his commune”, his family spent more than a week looking for him.
“We went around the police stations in the area, we went to more than ten brigades,” says the aunt. “They [law enforcement] don’t know who did what, they’re taking everyone away,” she laments, reassured to have at least been able to locate the young man thanks to a call made with the phone from a stranger.
Coming to assist two of his relatives, Georges Dethie learned that his cousin will stay for a time in the famous prison of Rebeuss, in the city center. Arrested the day before the demonstrations while “visiting one of his comrades”, Georges believes that he was “targeted” because he is an “influential” coordinator of one of the youth sections of the Pastef.
His party interprets the exit from the prosecution as “yet another attack on Pastef”. The party of opponent Ousmane Sonko, de facto house arrest in the capital, also deplores “the silence of the prosecutor” on the deaths during the riots in early June. Sixteen victims were recorded during these two days of demonstration according to the government, twenty-three according to Amnesty International whose director of the Senegalese office, Seydi Gassama, does not see with a good eye the arrival of these many detainees in prisons ” already overcrowded.”
