The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has just launched a recruitment for a Francophone Africa Researcher & Representative, based in Senegal. The position is half-time (2.5 days per week). The closing date for applications is 28 October. Applicants must be fluent in French, have strong English language skills, and must already have the right to work in Senegal.

Scientists at a Senegalese university are the first to benefit from a United Nations-backed project aimed at providing colleges in five African countries with the technology and tools needed to prevent the migration of graduates and reduce the continent’s “brain drain.” The installation of the first computing grid at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar is part of a joint initiative by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Hewlett-Packard and the Grid Computing Institute of France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Fourteen abuse victims, backed by a coalition of African and international rights groups, have filed complaints with a Senegalese prosecutor accusing the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré of crimes against humanity and torture. The charges mark a new phase in the long-running effort to bring Habré to trial for atrocities committed during his 1982-1990 rule.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Senegalese judiciary to investigate and prosecute the persons responsible for ordering the ransacking of two Senegalese newspapers after 12 members of the gang were convicted. Among those convicted were relatives of the former Minister for the Craft Industry and Air Transports.

The Senegalese parliament has passed a law extending the presidential term to seven years from five, but the ruling will not apply to sitting President Abdoulaye Wade, a Justice Ministry official said on Tuesday.

Reporters Without Borders is worried about recent comments by President Abdoulaye Wade and certain government ministers and ruling party legislators indicating a desire to step up censorship of the independent press. “The repeated scathing comments about the independent media can only aggravate the climate of hostility between the press and government,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge the Senegalese authorities to respect the work of the media and allow the media regulatory body to do its job.”

His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade
President of the Republic of Senegal
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Senegal to the United States
2112 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Dear Mr. President,

Following the brutal beating of two Senegalese journalists by police after a soccer match on Saturday, we are writing to express our alarm at an increasing pattern of physical attacks and threats against independent journalists in the line of duty in recent weeks and months. Thorough, transparent police investigations or prosecutions of these abuses have seldom taken place. We are deeply concerned about an ongoing culture of impunity for crimes against journalists. Sports editor Babacar Kambel Dieng of Radio Futurs Médias (RFM) ad reporter Kara Thioune of bilingual station West Africa Democracy Radio, are still recovering from injuries inflicted by policemen following a World Cup soccer qualifier match against Liberia on Saturday evening.

Plainclothes officers from the police’s Multipurpose Intervention Brigade attacked Dieng and Thioune while they were interviewing Senegal defender Pape Malikou Diakhaté, according to local news reports. The journalists told CPJ the officers used tasers on them, then punched, kicked and handcuffed them after they refused to obey an order to immediately leave the area and proceed to a post-game conference hall. They were dragged to a secluded room, and further beaten while handcuffed, they told CPJ. Dieng’s voice recorder accidentally captured the sounds of the beating, which was later broadcast on a local radio station.

Two sports journalists were brutally beaten by Senegalese police at Leopold Sedar Senghor Stadium, Dakar on June 21, 2008. The journalists, Kara Thioune of West Africa Democracy Radio (WADR) and Babacar Kambel Diang a reporter for the private radio station RFM, were punched, kicked and beaten with electric batons.

Two soldiers were killed and two others injured on 20 May when their army patrol in the Casamance region was attacked by armed men allegedly from the rebel Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques De Casamance (MFDC), an spokesman for the army told IRIN.

A growing number of women around Senegal, choose to take charge of their reproductive health with the help of something that looks like a necklace. That decision may keep them from ever being counted among the millions of women globally who are seriously injured or die during childbirth.

Two years after a United Nations committee requested that Senegal prosecute or extradite the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, no action has been taken, six human rights organizations has said. Habré fled to Senegal after he was deposed in 1990. Senegal has an unambiguous legal obligation to prosecute or extradite the former dictator to face charges of torture, said a joint statement by several human rights groups.

Welcoming the convening of the 11th ordinary session of the Islamic Summit Conference in Dakar, and that this historical occasion represents an opportune moment for the leaders of the Muslim World to take stock of the progress of work on issues and projects addressed in their declarations at the 10th Ordinary Summit (2003) and the Extraordinary Summit (2005), and call on leaders of the Muslim World to devote time, energy and resolve to address emerging issues that affect the Muslim Ummah, particularly the humanitarian situation in Darfur and also Palestine.

People Development Consulting, , is searching for a committed collaborator, for a West African NGO based in Dakar. The job mission is to contribute, within the frame of the 5 Years Strategic Plan, to the consolidation of Information Pluralism and Media Development at the West African regional level through the implementation and visibility of the programme at regional and international levels. The deadline for application is April, 28th, 2008.

Reporters Without Borders condemns police use of violence against journalists covering a banned street march against cost of living increases in Dakar yesterday afternoon, and a police raid on a TV station that was broadcasting footage showing how police broke up the protest. “The security forces behaved in a manner unworthy of Senegalese democracy,” the press freedom organisation said. “Erasing pictures of clashes and preventing them being shown on TV is not an effective way of keeping order.

Ethnic violence forced thousands of Mauritanians out of their homes and into Senegal two decades ago, but the two countries and the UN are working together to bring them back home. After leaving camps across the Senegal River from their homeland last week, the second group of repatriates received a warm welcome in Rosso.

UNHCR is picking up its repatriation operation from Senegal with a second convoy on Thursday bringing home more than 250 Mauritanians. We plan to step up the pace of voluntary returns and organize bi-weekly convoys to reach a target of 3,000 returns per month.

Yahya Dampha, a Gambian journalist, who is in exile in Senegal, on March 10, 2008 escaped a kidnapping attempt by suspected agents of the notorious National Intelligence Agency (NIA) of The Gambia. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that at about 12 noon, three plain-clothed agents of the NIA went to Dampha's home in Dakar to abduct him, but through the intervention of his neighbours, the men fled.

Senegalese police clashed with hundreds of people protesting against the publication of photos of an alleged wedding betwen two men in the country. Police fired teargas to contain the large crowd. A local magazine, Icone, broke the story in early February. The publication followed arrest and detention of homosexuals who were later released without charge. Icone's editor claimed he has since received several death threats for exposing homosexuals in a society where they face social stigma and blackmail.

Police in Senegal have arrested several men following the publication of pictures claiming to depict a wedding ceremony between two men. The pictures were published in Icone magazine, whose editor, Mansour Dieng, has since received death threats. Mr Dieng has also been questioned by police over the issue. Homosexuality is illegal in Senegal but it is not clear whether the arrests were in connection with the ceremony or the death threats.

Despite a lingering landmine threat, families who years ago fled fighting in Senegal’s southern Casamance region are slowly trying to return to their home villages. But a lack of water – for drinking and for building homes – is keeping many away. With some villages abandoned for 15 years, wells have collapsed or are full of debris. Entire communities have been swallowed up in dense bush, and homes and other buildings which are mostly made of mud-brick have been wiped out.