SENEGAL: Senegal police crush opposition election protest

Senegalese riot police beat opposition leaders with batons and fired tear gas at a crowd of protesters demonstrating against President Abdoulaye Wade on in Dakar on Saturday (January 27), ahead of presidential elections next month. Senegalese riot police beat opposition leaders with batons and fired tear gas at a crowd of protesters demonstrating against President Abdoulaye Wade on in Dakar on Saturday (January 27), ahead of presidential elections next month. A group of around 50 police baton-charged protesters and arrested at least six leaders of opposition parties at the march to demand free and fair polls in the West African state. Former Prime Minister Moustapha Niasse, now leader of the opposition Alliance of Forces of Progress, was one of the people arrested during the morning march. The demonstration had been banned on Friday (January 26) by authorities in Senegal, where the Feb. 25 election has raised tensions in a country regarded as a democratic bastion in a region infamous for civil wars and military coups. Wade, 80, remains favourite to retain power at next month's polls. Dozens of demonstrators scattered through the shabby backstreets of Dakar's poor Medina neighbourhood pursued by riot police, as clouds of tear gas drifted through the air. A small demonstration continued in Dakar's main square, Place de l'Independance, in front of Senegal's Chamber of Commerce. "We are deeply deceived by the fact that the people in power are there because of the observance of the rules of democracy contained in our legal system, that's why they are in power now, but if they now turn against the most elementary principle of democracy, this is a profound deception, because we are keeping our rights given in the Senegalese constitution. (the right to demonstrate)," said one of the opposition leaders Jacques Baudin said before being arrested by police coming out of a van. Wade, himself a former opposition leader, has been strongly criticised by his opponents for jailing political rivals and repeatedly postponing legislative elections, amid concerns his coalition could lose its majority.

ITN Source | January 28, 2007

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