2023-09-02 22:13:51
He had stopped eating two days after his arrest. Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko, detained since the end of July on various charges including calling for insurrection, “suspended” his hunger strike on Saturday, which began more than a month ago, but his participation in the 2024 presidential election remains compromised by a conviction in a sex scandal.
Ousmane Sonko, whose balance of power with power and justice has kept Senegal in suspense for more than two years, announced that he had started his hunger strike on July 30, two days after his arrest followed by his indictment and his placement in detention on August 1 in Sébikotane, near Dakar, where he was then transferred to a hospital on August 6.
Presidential candidate in February 2024, Ousmane Sonko, 49, third in the 2019 presidential election, accuses President Macky Sall, who denies it, of wanting to exclude him from the ballot through legal proceedings. Elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, Macky Sall announced in early July that he would not stand for re-election.
“He was never suicidal”
Several calls, in particular from very influential religious leaders in Senegal, a predominantly Muslim country, where they often lead political mediations, have been launched in recent days for the opponent Sonko to stop his hunger strike.
Ciré Clédor Ly, one of his lawyers cited “two reasons” explaining his client’s decision. “He could not remain insensitive to the call of millions of people who are relieved by this suspension”. In addition, “he was never suicidal, he must not exhaust his vital organs. It was therefore indicated that he suspend” his hunger strike, said Me Ly.
Ousmane Sonko’s lawyers had issued several alerts on the deterioration, according to them, of his state of health. In a press release sent Friday evening, they affirmed that the life of their client, “Admitted to intensive care” since August 17, was “In danger” and invited the State “To urgently take all necessary measures to avoid a tragedy”. The Senegalese authorities had questioned this hunger strike.
“Final” conviction
Ousmane Sonko was convicted on June 1 of underage debauchery and sentenced to two years in prison. Having refused to appear at the trial, which he denounced as a plot to exclude him from the presidential election, he was convicted in absentia. He has since been imprisoned at the end of July on other charges, including calling for insurrection, criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise and undermining state security. The authorities question his responsibility in a series of episodes of protest to which his standoff with power and his disputes with the justice have given rise since 2021 – the most serious in June – and which have left several dead.
VIDEO. Senegal: look back at three days of chaos that left 16 dead
In an online interview published Wednesday by the magazine Jeune Afrique, the Minister of Justice Ismaïla Madior Fall affirmed that the opponent’s conviction in the morality case was “final”, which makes him ineligible for the 2024 presidential election.
Ousmane Sonko was also sentenced on appeal to a six-month suspended prison sentence in May for defamation against a minister, a case in which he has not exhausted his appeals. Several hundred of his activists and sympathizers are in prison, according to his party.
#Senegal #opponent #Ousmane #Sonko #interrupts #hunger #strike