A sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of journalists, activists and politicians, Article 80 of the Penal Code has survived two democratically elected regimes, after 40 years of socialist rule. Since the start of this new regime, the Dakar public prosecutor’s office has shown that it will continue to use it to regulate freedom of expression. Until when?

Politician Amath Suzanne Camara is returning to the Justice Palace this morning following the subject of feedback by the Public Prosecutor’s Office on Friday. He is likely to be charged with offending the Head of State. A vestige of the socialist reign, with its excesses and its desire to better control political activities, article 80 of the Penal Code, an extremely repressive ‘catch-all’ article which has recently been used by national courts to charge various journalists and politicians, has paradoxically survived two democratic regimes. On the steps of the Elysée Palace, Abdoulaye Wade, who was triumphantly elected in 2000, the culmination of his long and exhausting fight for democracy, announced that he would repeal it. For him, this article was liberticide and had to be removed from the Penal Code.

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Intoxicated by power, the third President of the Republic never fulfilled this promise. He has used it on several occasions to put journalists and politicians in prison for ‘offending the Head of State’. Not to mention adding to the basket of repression the offences of undermining state security, spreading false news, etc. Despite pressure from civil society, the media and other leaders, who call the deletion of Article 80 to be included in the various plans to reform the Penal Code, nothing has happened. Macky Sall, whose second term in office was fraught with political and judicial tensions, suppressed this protest, which arose from Ousmane Sonko’s legal problems.

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While all this has been erased by an amnesty law, the public prosecutor continues to police freedom of expression in the country. Abdou Karim Diop, a major player in the judicial policy of Sall’s last five-year term, is still keeping a watchful eye on the media and social networks. Before Amath Suzanne Camara, he arrested Bah Diakhaté and Imam Cheikh Tidiane Ndao. The activist was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Division (Dic) after posting a video attacking Ousmane Sonko.  on the theme of homosexuality, on the occasion of the visit of Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Dakar. In another video, the preacher criticised the Prime Minister for having ‘a complacent attitude towards homosexuality’. Although the prosecutor had requested a six-month prison sentence for Bah Diakhaté and Imam Cheikh Tidiane Ndao, the court sentenced them to three months’ imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 CFA francs.  But it acquitted them of the charge of insulting a person exercising presidential prerogatives. This last charge had moved everyone: for as long as anyone can remember, it was the first time that so much consideration was shown towards a Prime Minister.

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Today, will the new regime, which organised the Justice Conference, repeal this repressive article? Or will it continue to use it to curb verbal outbursts in the political arena and provide a framework for freedom of expression in Senegal? With Amath Suzanne Camara’s arraignment this morning, it’s going to be just another day at the Justice Palace in Dakar.

By Bocar SAKHO / bsakho@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH