DAKAR, Jan 23, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Human Rights Watch on Monday denounced
Senegal for repressing opposition leaders, media and civil society, in a
report published weeks before the West African nation holds presidential
election.

HRW highlighted numerous concerns in its report.

"President Macky Sall's promise to hold free and fair elections is at odds
with the reality that the authorities have been filling prisons for the last
three years with hundreds of political opponents," the report said.

"The authorities should effectively investigate all security force violence,
release people arbitrarily detained, and guarantee the rights to freedom of
expression, association, and peaceful assembly."

As HRW released its report, Senegalese Justice Minister Aissata Tall Sall was
in Geneva, insisting that "all political freedoms and freedoms of expression
are recognised" in her country.

Sall said the February 25 elections would be organised "in peace and
stability and respect for republican and democratic principles".

The report came just two days after Senegal's Constitutional Council
published a final list of 20 candidates for the presidential election, which
excluded jailed opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade, the son of
former president Abdoulaye Wade.

Those making the list include Prime Minister Amadou Ba, chosen by President
Macky Sall as his successor after Sall announced in July that he would not
seek a third term.

Sonko, third in the 2019 presidential election, has been at the centre of a
bitter stand-off with the state that has lasted more than two years and
sparked often deadly unrest.

The 49-year-old opposition figure has generated a passionate following among
Senegal's disaffected youth, striking a chord with his pan-Africanist
rhetoric and tough stance towards former colonial power France.

The Constitutional Council rejected Sonko's candidacy due to his six-month
suspended sentence for defamation, which was upheld by the Supreme Court on
January 4.

- Excessive force -

HRW accused the security forces of resorting to "excessive force", including
use of live ammunition and improper use of tear gas to disperse thousands of
protesters across the country in March 2021 and June 2023. It said at least
37 people had been killed during violent clashes since March 2021 with no
accountability.

"Young people died, and their families are yet to see any justice done," the
NGO quoted Alioune Tine, a prominent Senegalese human rights activist and
founder of the research organization AfrikaJom, as saying.

HRW said it compiled its report after interviewing 34 people, including
opposition party members and members of civil society groups, journalists,
lawyers and university professors, between November 2023 and January 2024.

It also reviewed reports by national and international media, including
photographs of a protester's injuries in June 2023 and a video showing
gendarmes torturing a protester the same month.

The group added it had sent its findings to the justice ministry and
requested a response, but had not received one.