Hundreds of protesters on Tuesday took to the streets of Senegal’s capital in a peaceful show of support for the country’s opposition leader who is going on trial later this week.
It was the first of several days of scheduled demonstrations backing Ousmane Sonko. The 46-year-old president of the Patriots of Senegal for Ethics, Work and Fraternity party, is to go to court today, after being charged in a civil lawsuit by Senegal’s tourism minister for alleged defamation and public insults.
The case stems from accusations Sonko made against the minister during a news conference late last year. He had said that the tourism minister allegedly stole US$47 million from a government agency.
Photo: AFP
Protesters gathered in Dakar’s suburbs, shouting and chanting.
“We are here to support our leader, Ousmane Sonko. We will do everything to ensure that he is not imprisoned. He is not guilty of anything,” Moustapha Diedhiou said.
Sonko’s supporters see the charges against him as the latest attempt to cut short his political career, including his likely presidential candidacy next year. Sonko finished third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and has called on Senegalese President Macky Sall to declare publicly that he will not seek a third term.
The ruling party says that Sall should be allowed to run after a constitutional change in 2016 —made while Sall was president — which changed presidential terms to five years.
Along with the defamation trial, Sonko also faces rape charges after a female employee accused him of assaulting her at a massage salon. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and would be barred from running for president. No date is set for the trial.
Sonko is politicizing a legal problem between two citizens, government spokesman Abdou Karim Fofana said, adding that the government would ensure order.
In 2021, days of deadly protests erupted after Sonko was arrested for disturbing public order while on his way to the courthouse for a scheduled appearance in the rape case. At least 13 people died during the worst violence to rock Senegal in years.
With elections less than a year away, Sonko’s supporters say they are not going to back down.
The government’s “objective is to prevent the candidacy of our leader in the next presidential election,” Mamadou Fall said. “We will not accept it.”
Apps and Web sites that use artificial intelligence (AI) to undress women in photos are soaring in popularity, researchers said. In September alone, 24 million people visited undressing Web sites, the social network analysis company Graphika said. Many of these undressing, or “nudify,” services use popular social networks for marketing, Graphika said. For instance, since the beginning of this year, the number of links advertising undressing apps increased more than 2,400 percent on social media, including on X and Reddit, the researchers said. The services use AI to recreate an image so that the person is nude. Many of the services only
IN ABSOLUTE CONTROL: About 80 percent of Russians approve of Putin, a survey shows, but that might be misleading due to his intolerance to criticism Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election in March that he is all but certain to win. Putin still commands wide support after nearly a quarter-century in power, despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has taken thousands of his people’s lives, provoked repeated attacks inside Russia — including one on the Kremlin itself — and corroded its aura of invincibility. A short-lived rebellion in June by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin raised widespread speculation that Putin could be
TAKING STOCK: It was not yet clear how damaging the espionage, dating to 1981, has been, as authorities are still assessing the situation, the State Department said A former US ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested and charged with spying for Cuba over a 40-year span, the US Department of Justice announced on Monday, detailing a shock betrayal by a suspect who called the US “the enemy.” US Attorney General Merrick Garland laid out the allegations against Victor Manuel Rocha, a onetime member of the White House’s National Security Council now accused of using his positions within the government to support Cuba’s “clandestine intelligence-gathering mission” against the US. The charges against Rocha, 73, expose “one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign
As pro-EU parties prepare to take power in Poland, a new star has shot to fame: a parliament speaker whose wit has drawn thousands of new followers to the chamber’s social media channels. Polish Marshal of the Sejm Szymon Holownia is no stranger to a wide audience as a former TV personality who notably hosted the Polish edition of the Got Talent! franchise. The 47-year-old left show business for politics four years ago, and now enjoys the spotlight chairing plenary proceedings following his success in the Oct. 15 parliamentary elections. “Ladies and gentlemen, stock up on popcorn ... because I suspect there will
RSS