Senegalese authorities, who had already restricted Internet access on mobile phones earlier this week, suspended the TikTok application on Wednesday August 2. The social network is the service “preferred by ill-intentioned people to disseminate hateful and subversive messages threatening the stability of the country”, justifies in a press release the Minister of Communication and the Digital Economy.
A hardening linked to the fear of seeing the country ignite again after the violent riots which followed the conviction in a sex case of Ousmane Sonko, one of the main opponents of President Macky Sall, in June, and the demonstrations following the dissolution of his party, the African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (Pastef), on July 31, on the sidelines of which at least three people died in Dakar and Ziguinchor (south).
Since then, a precarious calm has returned, punctuated by incidents. In Thiès, a town 60 km east of Dakar, three buses were set on fire. And in the capital, the driver of a scooter died while trying to avoid a police check. A situation that raises fears of a new conflagration at any time.
Especially since Tuesday, at the end of the afternoon, a bus which was en route to downtown Dakar was hit by a Molotov cocktail. Two people died and five others were injured, two seriously, according to the public prosecutor. Speaking in front of the carcass of the charred vehicle, Antoine Félix Diome, the Minister of the Interior, described the attack committed by “seven hooded individuals” as a “terrorist act”. No direct link has been established with the deadly protests in June. But each camp, while expressing its condolences, referred to the other the responsibility for these abuses.
“This heinous act is symptomatic of the trivialization of gratuitous violence and disrespect for human life,” former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall, head of the Taxawu Senegal party, said on Wednesday. Thierno Alassane Sall, Macky Sall’s former minister turned non-aligned MP, speaks of an “infernal spiral” of violence.
Since the beginning of the “Sonko affair”, in March 2021 (date of his first arrest following a complaint of rape), “press offices and houses of personalities involved in political-judicial affairs have been attacked, buses have already been burned, magistrates and journalists have been threatened… no one should be surprised that there are victims”, comments Thierno Alassane Sall. “Individuals want to create a climate of terror, but we cannot say who they are and where they come from,” he adds, denouncing the inability of the government and the defense and security forces to stop the culprits in order to bring them to justice.
Fever flare-ups
Senegal has certainly experienced, in the past, outbreaks of deadly fever. In 1988, during the re-election of Abdou Diouf, incidents broke out after the publication of the results, causing the state of emergency and the arrest of Abdoulaye Wade, an opponent at the time before becoming president in 2000. Similarly, in 2011, several people died in demonstrations against Abdoulaye Wade’s third candidacy – protests led by a young opponent at the time, Macky Sall. But all observers agree on this point: the social explosions that have shaken the country since 2021 are something unprecedented.
Today, “it is the form and extent of the violence that is surprising,” observes law professor Babacar Gueye, author of a report on the unrest that marred the electoral processes from 2000 to 2011: “In l or two years, more than 60 people have died in protests and many individuals are in jail for speaking their minds or participating in protests. We have an upsurge in repression that we did not know about. »
For the Pastef, dissolved by the government because of its “frequent” calls for “insurrectional movements”, it was indeed the power that opened the hostilities. “Hate speech started in 2016 with the removal of Ousmane Sonko [from the civil service]. The party has been called a terrorist and a Salafist. This violence therefore comes from the State, which wants to eliminate an opposition candidate in the presidential election of 2024, “said El Malick Ndiaye, head of communication for Pastef.
Supporters of the imprisoned opponent, very active on social networks and within the diaspora, went so far as to suggest that the attack on the bus had been sponsored by the authorities to justify the repression of demonstrators favorable to Ousmane Sonko. El Malick Ndiaye does not make this connection, but he balances the deaths of the bus and those of the riots: “Indeed, this attack is serious. But what about the people shot and killed during the protests? What do we do with the violence of the thugs? “, he asks in reference to the armed men dressed in civilian clothes spotted alongside the police during the events of March 2021 and June 2023.