In Senegal, energy modifications fingers however arrests for “offense” in opposition to leaders proceed | EUROtoday

They are the primary prisoners of conscience for the reason that accession to energy of Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko. Bah Diakhate, an activist near the previous head of state Macky Sall, and the imam Cheikh Tidiane Ndao have been arrested respectively on Monday May 20 and Tuesday May 21, following a self-referral from the general public prosecutor, by the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) for “spreading fake news” And “offense against the person who exercises all or part of the prerogatives of the President of the Republic”, in line with one in all their legal professionals, M^e Amadou Sall.

The incriminated feedback could also be stunning given the positions defended by Ousmane Sonko. In movies and audio messages broadcast on-line, the activist and the cleric denounced the Prime Minister's supposed complacency relating to homosexuality, after the topic was raised throughout a convention Thursday, May 16 in Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the founding father of the France Insoumise occasion. Brought earlier than the Dakar courtroom on Wednesday, Bah Diakhate was finally not heard by the prosecutor. He needs to be there on Thursday after one other evening in police custody.

In entrance of the scholars who got here to attend his alternate with the French opponent, Mr. Sonko – who spoke as chief of the African Patriots of Senegal for work, ethics and fraternity (Pastef), his political formation – had declared that societies in Africa and Senegal had at all times lived with homosexuality, with out there being persecution. If the very fact “is not accepted, it is tolerated”he mentioned, earlier than including that the topic risked being the “casus belli” relations between the West and nations like his. Jean-Luc Mélenchon responded that the “freedom of love should be open to all those who want to benefit from it. »

“Western import”

In Senegal, homosexuality is judged as a “unnatural act with an individual of one’s own sex”, penalized with one to 5 years of imprisonment. The controversy that adopted the May 16 convention, nevertheless, was primarily restricted to non secular circles. “We denounce the fact that Ousmane Sonko invited Jean-Luc Mélenchon and that the university served as a platform for the apology of homosexuality”feedback Mame Makhtar Guèye, vice-president of the Islamic group Jamra, whereas regretting the feedback “ extremely virulent” of Bah Diakhate and Cheikh Tidiane Ndao.

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