President Macky Sall’s promise to conduct a free and fair election in February 2024 is at best a smoke screen, as the current reality in Senegal contradicts this promise.

Development Diaries reports that the authorities in Senegal are cracking down on the opposition, media, and civil society ahead of the country’s general election on 25 February.

Local media reports suggest a spate of arrests of political opposition figures and dissidents in recent months.

We understand the crackdown began in 2021 over court cases involving prominent opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and over concerns about whether President Sall would run for a third term.

Up to 1,000 opposition members and activists have been arrested across the country since March 2021.

‘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’, Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Senior Sahel Researcher, Ilaria Allegrozzi, said in a statement.

‘The authorities should ensure that all Senegalese are able to freely express their views and exercise their vote fairly and peacefully’.

The authorities have used the judicial system to target political opponents and dissidents.

Lawyers representing those arrested in connection with opposition-led protests expressed concerns over the lack of respect for the due process rights of their clients, including trumped-up charges, lack of evidence to substantiate charges, prolonged pretrial detention, and ill-treatment and torture in detention or upon arrest.

International human rights law guarantees the right to freedom of assembly and expression and prohibits excessive use of force by law enforcement officials as well as detention in inhumane and degrading conditions.

Freedom House, in its Freedom in the World 2023 report, ranked Senegal as ‘partly free’, with the country scoring 68 out of a possible 100 points.

Development Diaries calls on President Sall to fulfil his promise of delivering a free and fair election that is devoid of oppression and intimidation of opposition parties and their leaders.

We also call on the authorities to effectively investigate all security force violence, release people arbitrarily detained, and guarantee the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly in the West African country.

Source: HRW

Photos source: HRW