Senegal’s authorities suspends cellular web entry amid days of lethal clashes

DAKAR, Senegal — Senegal’s authorities quickly suspended cell phone information on Sunday because the nation reels from days of lethal clashes between police and supporters of opposition chief Ousmane Sonko.

The ministry of communication, telecommunications and digital financial system stated that due to the diffusion of “subversive messages in a context of public disorder in certain localities,” cellphone web information could be suspended throughout sure time intervals.

The assertion comes after days of lethal clashes all through the West African nation between Sonko’s supporters and police. The official loss of life toll is unclear. The authorities says that 15 individuals, together with two members of the safety forces, have been killed, whereas the opposition says 19 individuals have died.

The clashes first broke out on Thursday, after Sonko was convicted of corrupting youth however acquitted on prices of raping a lady who labored at a therapeutic massage parlor and making loss of life threats towards her. Sonko, who didn’t attend his trial in Dakar, was sentenced to 2 years in jail. His lawyer stated {that a} warrant hadn’t but been issued for his arrest.

Sonko got here third in Senegal’s 2019 presidential election and is fashionable with the nation’s youth. His supporters preserve that his authorized troubles are a part of a authorities effort to derail his candidacy within the 2024 presidential election.

Sonko is taken into account to be President Macky Sall’s principal competitors and has urged Sall to state publicly that he gained’t search a 3rd time period in workplace. Sonko hasn’t been seen or heard from for the reason that verdict.

The worldwide neighborhood has known as on Senegal’s authorities to resolve the tensions.

The authorities had already suspended entry to some social media websites, akin to Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, which it stated was getting used to incite violence.

At a information convention on Saturday night, the federal government stated it might take all mandatory measures to safe the nation.

“I would like to reassure the Senegalese people that whatever attacks we have, the state will face them,” Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome stated. Around 500 individuals have been arrested throughout the nation, together with these belonging to political events in addition to those that are simply making an attempt to scare individuals, he stated.