The wait lasted just over 45 days. Apr opens hostilities against Pastef. The new opposition denounced the “arbitrary arrest” of Bah Diakhaté and called for mobilization to demand his release.

The grace period did not last 2 months. Hostilities between Apr and Pastef have begun. In a communiqué signed by Seydou Guèye, spokesman for the former ruling party, the new opposition attacked the new regime. The pretext is the arrest on “spurious and far-fetched grounds” of “republican” activist Bah Diakhaté, “renowned for his well-documented and in-depth analyses”. According to the press release, during a live broadcast, the activist discussed the Pastef leader’s comments on the criminalization of homosexuality, and the latter’s disavowal at a joint conference with the leader of La France insoumise held at Ucad, on a land transaction and on the case of a Pastef vice-president sanctioned by his hierarchy for questions of morality. According to the document, “None of these facts, which have been mentioned and proven, constitute public insults or offenses, let alone the dissemination of false news”.

Bah Diakhaté and Imam Cheikh T. Ndao under Investigation for Spreading False News and Offending the Prime Minister

With this observation, the Apr “calls on public opinion to denounce this arbitrary arrest in the strongest possible terms, and to express its deep concern at the liberticidal excesses of the new authorities”.

For Macky Sall’s protégés, the Apr party had very early on “warned that the Pastef party was jeopardizing the way we live together, given its political presence based on violence, hatred, manipulation, insults, contempt and attacks on the institutions of the Republic”. To this end, the document points out, “this appalling arrest calls out to all Republicans, all democratic citizens, concerned about the future of Senegal and attached to freedom, particularly freedom of expression. To accept that Bah Diakhaté is in detention is to abdicate, to open the way to arbitrariness and all kinds of abuse”.

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As a result, Seydou Guèye and his comrades are demanding the “immediate and unconditional release of Bah Diakhaté, to block the way to the gravediggers of freedoms and democracy”.
By Malick GAYE / mgaye@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH