In Togo, the arrest of a rapper rekindles anger towards energy | EUROtoday

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DIt was as much as a number of days, the clouds piled up above Lomé. A lead screwed down on town. The appears to be like had been fleeting, the conversations had been made in a low voice. In the working -class districts, Aamron punchlines had been looping on telephones, equivalent to a provocation launched within the face of energy.

The arrest, in the course of the evening, of rapper Tchalla Essowè Narcisse, alias Aamron, on May 26, by no means ceases to shake Togo. Committed artist, acerbic criticism of energy, his brutal disappearance of the general public scene set hearth to the powder. Since then, requires his launch have multiplied. The authorities stay of marble.

Prohibited demonstrations, unleashed anger

This Friday, June 6, anger exploded. At the decision of citizen actions, native NGOs and opposition events, demonstrators tried to surge on the good arteries of the capital. Despite the formal ban on any gathering, they braved the safety wire. The clashes with the police weren’t lengthy in.

This June 6 will not be a trivial date. This is the birthday of Faure Gnassingbé, in energy for twenty years and have become, final May, President of the Council. An emblem. “Civil disobedience is a right -hand -registered right in our Constitution. We cannot gag each time we shout our fed up ”, drops a younger girl underneath the quilt of anonymity.

By his aspect, within the district of Amouitévé, Fubert Amouzou, a 34 -year -old mechanic, doesn’t mince phrases. He left his toolbox to achieve the procession: “Manifesting is a proper. Even in nations at conflict like Mali or Burkina Faso, folks exit when it is not going properly. And right here we’re in Togo right here, we’re forbidden to say that we’re fed up? Still underneath the pretext of safety? It’s a masquerade. »»

On social networks, movies flow into: hearth tires, tear gasoline, demonstrators dispersed with baton. Scuffles would even have damaged out in a number of cities within the inside, an indication that anger exceeds Lomé.

Threats and early repression

In a video relayed earlier than the demonstrations, the previous Minister of Security, General Yark Damehane, had launched a transparent warning: public order can be “maintained by all means”. A declaration perceived as a menace barely veiled by the demonstrators, who see it as early justification of the repression.

The opposition, which helps mobilization, denounces a brutal and premeditated repression. “These demonstrations are only the beginning. There were arrests very early this morning, but that will not discourage us. Today, fear has changed camps, ”says Nicodemus Habia, former deputy and president of the Democrats’ opposition occasion, seen within the coronary heart of the Bè district, historic bastion of the protest. He provides, decided: “Now we demand the release of all political prisoners in Togo. There are about a hundred political prisoners in Togo. »»

Despite the tear gas and the dams, the mobilization partially held, especially in the peripheral districts. The shops remain open in places, but the calls to demonstrate have found an echo, online as in the street.

A “mea culpa” underneath constraint?

The day earlier than, an Aamron video was touring on social networks. Obviously weakened, calm voice, your positioned, he requested for forgiveness from the president of the Council Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé. “I made a series of videos in which I made insulting and outrageous remarks towards the president of the Council of Ministers Faure Gnassingbé. (…) After a few days of treatment, today, I am a little more peaceful and I become aware of the seriousness of my words and my flaws. I would like to seize this opportunity to ask for forgiveness and present my sincere apologies to His Excellency Faure Gnassingbé, compared to my deviant, discourteous and outrageous behavior, “he said. He invoked severe depression: “Doctors’ relationships could prove it, I was going through a period of serious depression, which made me be out of myself. He has since been transferred to a psychiatric hospital in the south of the country.

But this public faith, broadcast on the eve of mobilization, did not defuse anger. “Despite the forgiveness he asked, I joined the demonstrators this morning in Bè because I am sure he was forced to make this video. The main thing for us is his release and that of all the other political detainees, ”says a younger demonstrator.

Family help and disputes

A couple of days after the arrest, Aamron’s mom denied that her son suffered from a psychological dysfunction. His daughter confirmed on social networks that the artist was “perfectly lucid and healthy” on the time of his arrest, which continues to indignant till the Togolese diaspora.

Followed by practically 24,000 subscribers on Tiktok, the artist will not be an remoted case. Last January, the militant poet Sokpor Sitsopé Honoré, referred to as affectio, was additionally arrested and charged for “infringement of internal security”. His improper? A poem entitled Make your shareby which he known as to “crack the chains of injustice”.

A muzzled “digital democracy”

Social networks embody a type of “digital democracy” in Togo, however they’re rapidly muzzled. The architect Sénamé Koffi Agbodjinou, co -founder of the Woelab collective and the sovereign community Plus, noticed his accounts suspended after having relayed the ebook “This country is all of us”, Pamphlet denouncing the constitutional reform which perpetuates the dictatorship underneath institutional cowl. He additionally denounces “an army of trolls and counter-influencers” financed to harass on-line activists, and the huge use of PEGASUS spy software program, which might have focused 100 Togolese, together with investigative journalists. “Indecent means-up to 20,000 euros per infected phone-are deployed to monitor a population that is claimed to govern,” he lambasted.


To uncover



The kangaroo of the day

Answer



This agitation on social networks isn’t any exception to energy. In 2024, the Ministry of Security explicitly brandished the specter of legal proceedings towards the authors of “false information” or “defamatory remarks”. A transparent warning in a rustic the place criticizing the regime might be value a keep in jail.

This Friday night, the authorities stay silent on the mobilization day on this vacation marked by the Tabaski pageant. Traffic timidly resumed in locations, however the stress stays full of life within the districts of Bè, Tokoin or Amétiévé, the place the stigma of repression are displayed on each road nook.



https://www.lepoint.fr/afrique/au-togo-l-arrestation-d-un-rappeur-rallume-la-colere-contre-le-pouvoir-06-06-2025-2591433_3826.php

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