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SENEGAL: Clashes between police and demonstrators anti-Wade left several people injured

 

Several people were injured in new clashes in Dakar Saturday between police and young people who tried, as before, to access a place downtown that was to take a banned demonstration the opposition against a new term of President Abdoulaye Wade.

Rescuers from two independent organizations spoke to AFP one of two injured and one of a dozen injured, one source mentioned autoriséea four ... .....

rescued wounded since the beginning of the afternoon.

Moreover, a young died after being injured Friday night in Kaolack (western Senegal) during a demonstration organized to protest against "desecration" of a Mosque of Dakar by the police. 

The death brings to five the number of deaths since late January in connection with the challenge to the candidacy for president Abdoulaye Wade of 26 February.

For the fifth consecutive day, the opposition and civil society, gathered in the Movement June 23 (M23), had decided to hold a banned demonstration against the candidacy Mr. Wade.

Hundreds of young people gathered on Avenue Georges Pompidou leading to Independence Square where the event was scheduled. They threw stones at police who barred access, the police fired back tear gas to disperse demonstrators and used water cannon to extinguish the fire to makeshift barricades erected on the avenue.

Similar scenes occurred in several streets of downtown, where all shops were closed, while many residents watched the scene on their doorstep or on sidewalks, some covering nose to keep out the acrid mixture of smoke and tear gas.

The tear gas did not spare the town hall in Dakar where, according to Mayor Khalifa Sall (opposition), 17 weddings were scheduled Saturday and were disrupted ; s. "They throw tear gas here is the irresponsibility of law enforcement," he told AFP.

All streets and avenues leading to the Independence Square, in the administrative district and Shelf cases where the Presidential Palace, were blocked by the forces of se rity, which prevented several opposition candidates to access it, including Mayor Cheikh Bamba Dieye and ex-Ministers of Foreign Affairs Ibrahima Fall and Cheikh Tidiane Gadio.

Mr. Dieye has nevertheless managed to get on the Square, where it spread even to the asphalt, before being unceremoniously shown the door by police.

This "will not stop us, Abdoulaye Wade will not stop us. It can block all the streets of Dakar, blocking all lanes, taking out the tanks, it will not stop us, "said Mr. Gadio told AFP, citing a "forcing against (the) people".

Friday, a dozen people, including a policeman, were injured in the violence in Plateau similar, exacerbated by the gesture of a police officer who fired tear gas to inside a mosque of the Muslim Brotherhood of Tidianes located in this area.

An expression of anger against what is held in Kaolack (west) where a young man died in unspecified circumstances by the police, the local press that he had been hit by a tear gas canister.

Actions of revenge have been completed Tivaouane (west), one of the holy cities of Tidianes, where the mayor was sacked and burned. The mayor of the city, El-Hadj Malick Diop, the presidential movement, has challenged young opponents "manipulated".

The Interior Minister Ousmane Ngom met Saturday Serigne Mansour Sy, General Caliph of the Brotherhood of Tidianes Tivaouane, to try to calm things down. The spokesman called on the Caliph's faithful "to calm and serenity."

Of NGOs on Human Rights deplored the violence, denouncing "dozens of arrests" for three days. They urged the authorities "to immediately stop the ongoing repression".

Seven youths from opposite movement Enough 's enough for re-election of Mr. Wade, who were arrested Thursday in Dakar were charged with "participating in an unauthorized demonstration" and released and will be judged on 22 in February, according to their group. 13 others are still on the police.

Elected in 2000, reelected in 2007, Mr. Wade said certain to win the presidency in the first round. The M23 believes he has exhausted his two terms legal and illegal judge its new application, a claim disputed by his supporters point out that reforms of the Constitution gives him the right to represent .

It is in this climate of heightened tension that some 23,000 military and paramilitary began voting in the presidential election Saturday to Sunday.