The deadly violence that has broken out in Senegal seems surreal even to the most seasoned analysts of the West African nation’s political evolution. Angry Senegalese believe President Wade has executed a coup to stay in power.

Senegalese riot police fired tear gas to break up a tense, thousands-strong rally 31 January in Dakar demanding that President Abdoulaye Wade drop plans to seek a third term in office. Opposition groups united under the June 23 Movement (M23), had called for mass resistance after a decision last Friday by the country's top judges allowing 85-year-old Wade to seek a third mandate in the February 26 polls. Thousands had gathered by late afternoon in a square in the working class suburb of Colobane, where tension rose and angry youths hurled rocks at scores of riot police keeping watch from afar.

Prominent Senegalese opposition activist Alioune Tine has been released after spending two days in detention. Tine is a member of the opposition June 23 Movement (M23), formed after countrywide protests last year against incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade's plans to run for a third term. Tine told the AFP agency he had been freed without charge.

Senegalese police have arrested close to a dozen opposition protestors including an outspoken civil society leader as they struggled to get a grip on street protests that have rocked the country following a controversial court ruling. Mr Alioune Tine, the vocal secretary-general of the African Assembly for Human Rights Defence was arrested after he turned himself in to the authorities. The other protestors arrested are being held in Dakar and in several regional headquarters including Thies, 70 kilometres and Kaolack, some 150 kilometres outside Dakar.

Senegal's opposition has called for more resistance to the court approval of President Abdoulaye Wade's bid to seek a highly disputed third term, after a night of riots in the capital, Dakar. Opposition leaders vowed on Saturday to force the president out of office, threatening to march on the palace in a city reeling from violent riots that left at least one policeman dead, according to local media. The ruling sparked fury in the capital, where protesters clashed with police. Anti-Wade protesters threw stones at police who responded with batons and tear gas after the much-anticipated ruling.

Visit the 'Recent Activity' section of Fahamu's Youtube page to view a series of videos showing protesters near place de l'obelisque on January 27 in Dakar, Senegal awaiting the constitutional court's decision on Wade's candidature in February elections.

Two Senegalese journalists with the private daily Le Quotidien have been handed suspended prison sentences in a criminal libel case over their coverage of an armed insurgency in a separatist province, according to the New York-based media watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists(CPJ). A statement from CPJ said a magistrate in a criminal court in the capital, Dakar, handed Le Quotidien editor Mamadou Biaye and reporter Mamadou Ticko Diatta suspended three-month prison terms.

This short report examines the practice in daaras (Koranic schools) of sending boys as young as five years old out to beg for several hours a day. Often living far from home and in squalid conditions, talibés are frequently subjected to abuse if they fail to meet their begging quotas. The report updates the information used in Begging for Change (Anti-Slavery International, 2009) and recommends action to bring an end to this situation in Senegal.

Senegal's Appeals Court has on a technicality rejected a request by Belgium to extradite former Chadian ex-President Hissene Habré. Handing down its ruling following days of interrogation of the request, the court Wednesday said that there were 'technicalities in the format', further arguing that there was no annex of the original application for arrest and detention by Belgium. Belgium has sought to extradite Mr Habré after it charged him with crimes against humanity and torture during his term in power.

While internationally renowned Senegalese singer Youssou N’dour's entry into the Senegalese political field has made headlines, here's blogger Africa is a Country's view: 'The truth is, most serious analysts don’t give N’dour a chance and in some quarters his candidacy is viewed as a publicity stunt - among other factors, N’dour, who has a large fan audience outside Senegal, has no electoral organisation in place; enters a a crowded opposition field; while the incumbent (Abdoulaye Wade) is an experienced campaigner and controls the electoral machinery.'

Senegal has among the lowest rates of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, at less than one percent. But the most vulnerable group is men who have sex with men (MSM), nearly 22 per cent of whom are HIV-positive. Prisons are high-risk environments for the transmission of the disease, due to the prevalence of hard drugs, violence and sexual relations. There is no mandatory testing in prison, and for those prisoners who, either knowingly or unknowingly, are living with HIV, the stresses of living in prison – including overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and poor nutrition – mean their health is even more compromised.

Senegal’s separatists pushing for the secession of the Casamance region plan to transform into a political party. The group's leader disclosed this when he urged its factions to support the plan. 'The move is in the interest of peace and the reconstruction of Senegal,' said Mr Jean-Marie François Biagui, the group's leader.

Conflict had been brewing in the village of Fanaye in northern Senegal for months before clashes broke out in late October. The launch of a project by an Italian-Senegalese company to grow crops for biofuels on 20,000 acres of local land had been met with scepticism and anger by some villagers; protesters called it 'a form of slavery'. When work began on the project in September, a young man attacked a plantation worker with a sword. A local council meeting descended into violence, buildings were burned and two people died as villagers fought each other with sticks and machetes.

Police authorities at the Leopold Sedar Senghor airport in Dakar have confirmed that they were preventing the secretary-general of the International Federation of Human Rights from entering the country. A statement issued by the rights group quoted the airport police as saying that Mr Paul Nsapu had been detained since Thursday. Since the beginning of the Arab upheavals, civil society and rights groups in Senegal have been facing difficult times with the regime of President Abdoulaye Wade over his bid for a controversial third mandate. Several rights activists have been beaten up, arrested and briefly detained during a string of public demonstrations that left scores injured and public and private property destroyed.

Senegalese opposition parties are incensed after a court sentenced an activist to two years in prison. Mr Malick Nozel Seck was charged with issuing death threats to the five members of the country's Constitutional Council. In a two-page document sent to the Council three weeks ago, Mr Seck allegedly said that the lives of the members would be endangered if they approved the candidacy of President Abdoulaye Wade for next year’s polls.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/537/june_23_c_tmb.jpgElla Scheepers wonders whether the June 23 Movement in Senegal suggests a growing recognition that achieving political and social change requires collective consciousness and organisation, and cannot rely solely on the short-term impact of street protests or the individual efforts of any one party.

Senegalese families are spacing their children, having fewer, and as a result are increasingly searching for long-term family planning solutions, said Fatou Seck, a midwife at the hospital. While in 1990 the average woman in Senegal had 6.7 children in her reproductive cycle; in 2009 when the latest statistics were made available, they had 4.8, according to the Health Ministry.

During the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in February 2011, social movements, organizations of small food producers and other CSOs released a collective appeal against land grabbing. Over 650 organizations have already endorsed it. If your organization has not signed on yet and would also like to support this appeal, please do so before 7 October 2011.

Senegal: The Balkanisation of the rule of law, justice under threat and the republic in danger
Aboubacry Mbodji

Senegal’s political crisis is the result of several factors linked to the derailment of the principles of the rule of law that require the separation and independence of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the state, the equality of all citizens before law and the respect of the sovereignty of the people. Ten years of political alternation have led to a ‘patrimonialisation’ of power and the concentration of power in a single family, which according to Aboubacry Mbodji ‘is a serious danger to the republic’. This is the real meaning of the revolts taking place in the country.

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Can the independence of South Sudan inspire anglophone Cameroon?
Patrice Nganang

The independence of South Sudan on 9 July this year marked the birth of the 54th African nation. This also marks the second time, after Eritrea, that the principle of the inviolability of colonial borders has been flouted, a precedent that according to Patrice Nganang could be applied to anglophone Cameroon.

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Why is emergency aid insufficient?
Renaud Duterme

If charity were enough to abolish misery and exploitation, says Renaud Duterme, we would be living in an idyllic world. The crisis in Somalia, he argues, shows yet again that the concepts of solidarity practised by development organisations are the wrong solutions.

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Normalisation and its effects on producers in the global South

Normalisation is increasingly visible in international commercial transactions whose complexity constitutes an obstacle in the access to European markets by countries in the global South. The solution proposed by the organisation ‘Engineers without frontiers’ is to rethink the way these norms are conceived with the active involvement of southern countries.

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The Executive Director administers the CSO by defining and implementing corporate and financial strategy, by overseeing policy programs or projects, and by reporting on the Institute’s activities to the Board of Directors. In addition, he/she has an advocacy role with national and international institutions.