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Dakar University Campus Turned Battlefield As Crisis Errupted In Senegal Over Jail Of Opposition Leader

Published

2 years ago

June 1, 2023

Violence erupted in Senegal’s capital Dakar on Thursday after a court sentenced firebrand opposition leader Ousmane Sonko to two years’ jail for “corrupting youth,” a move that darkens his hopes of contesting presidential elections next year.

Sonko, President Macky Sall’s fiercest opponent, was absent when the judgment was handed down. He also did not attend the trial.

He was presumed to be at his Dakar home, where he had been blocked in by security forces after being detained at the weekend.

But after two years of a confrontation with the authorities that has kept the country on tenterhooks, he could now be arrested “at any time”, Justice Minister Ismaila Madior Fall told journalists.

The university campus in the centre of Dakar looked like a battlefield.

Clashes broke out with groups of young people pelting police in riot gear with stones. Police fired back with tear gas.

Several buses from the faculty of medicine, the history department and the country’s leading school of journalism were set on fire and offices ransacked. Classes were suspended until further notice.

Elsewhere, young people attacked a transport ticket office and other public property in parts of the city, burning tyres and placing obstacles in the streets, an AFP photographer saw.

Images of unrest elsewhere in the country circulated on social networks.

Apart from these outbreaks of violence, the streets of Dakar were virtually deserted, an unusual sight in a teeming metropolis.

Trouble was reported elsewhere in the country, in Casamance in the south, Mbour and Kaolack in the west and Saint-Louis in the north.

Satire Mbaye, a presidential party official in the Dakar suburb of Keur Massar, said the party headquarters had been “ransacked.”

“They broke the windows and destroyed the equipment inside”, she said. “They asked where was the house of Assome Diatta, the party’s local leader”.

The motorway leading to the airport was cut off by demonstrators, according to local media, while a commuter train connecting the new city of Diamniadio to the capital halted service.

– Election bid –

The violence came hours after the Dakar criminal court ruling against Sonko. The two-year-old case has deeply divided the West African state, sparking sporadic but deadly clashes that have battered the country’s image of stability.

Attention has focused on whether a conviction would prevent Sonko, 48-year-old head of the PASTEF-Patriots party, from contesting next year’s vote.

The court convicted him of “corrupting youth”, which consists of encouraging the “debauchery” of a young person under the age of 21.

But it acquitted him on charges of rape and issuing death threats.

The complainant, Adji Sarr, a former employee of the beauty salon where Sonko used to get massages, was under 21 at the time of the events.

She has been threatened, insulted and placed under police protection since the scandal broke two years ago.

During proceedings, Sarr said Sonko had abused her on five occasions between late 2020 and early 2021.

Sonko has maintained his innocence and claims the president is manipulating the judiciary to torpedo his political career — a charge the government denies.

“This verdict on command is the final stage in the plot hatched by Macky Sall and his henchmen”, said Sonko’s party in a press release.

It called on the Senegalese people to “take to the streets” and on the police to join them.

Ndeye Khady Ndiaye, the owner of the salon, was also sentenced to two years in prison for incitement to debauchery, but acquitted of complicity in rape.

She and Sonko must each pay a fine of 600,000 CFA francs ($980) and jointly pay 20 million CFA francs ($33,000) in damages to the complainant.

“We are satisfied of Sonko’s guilt”, El Hadji Diouf, Adji Sarr’s lawyer, told reporters.

But 20 million CFA francs in damages is little for the “suffering” Sarr has endured, he said.

The ruling appears to threaten the politician’s eligibility for next year’s presidential election under the electoral code.

One of his lawyers, Djiby Diagne, said “Ousmane Sonko’s candidacy is in jeopardy.”

The court did not rule on whether he should be arrested.

“The decision to arrest him or not depends on the public prosecutor,” Diagne said.

“Let all Senegalese know: Ousmane Sonko can no longer be a candidate”, said another of his lawyers, Bamba Cisse.

– Divided country –

A former civil servant, Sonko rose to prominence in presidential elections in 2019, where he came in third after a campaign that dealt verbal blows to Sall and the country’s ruling elite.

Sonko portrays Sall as corrupt and a would-be dictator, while the president’s supporters call him a rabble-rouser who has sown instability.

His initial arrest on rape charges in 2021 sparked several days of clashes that left at least 12 people dead.

Sonko’s electoral eligibility was already overshadowed by an earlier court battle.

He was handed six-month suspended prison sentence this year for defamation against a minister.

Headline

Fake Labubu Dolls Worth Millions Seized In London Raid Amid Growing Safety Fears

Published

18 hours ago

August 3, 2025

Editor

Thousands of fake Labubu dolls believed to be worth millions of pounds have been seized at an industrial estate on the outskirts of London following a major crackdown led by Trading Standards and law enforcement agencies.

The operation, which followed weeks of investigation, traced the fake merchandise from a corner shop in Swansea, south Wales, to a warehouse complex in London.

Officers discovered rooms stacked floor-to-ceiling with fake goods, but it was the imitation Labubu dolls at the centre of a viral TikTok craze that drew the most concern.

The dolls, produced by popular toy company Pop Mart, have surged in global demand, with some genuine pieces retailing for up to £80. The popularity of the brand helped the company double its revenue to £1.33 billion last year, according to Forbes. However, authorities say the boom has also attracted criminal enterprises looking to profit from the trend through counterfeit production.

“The head comes off. The feet pull off. The eyes aren’t glued in,” said Rhys Harries, a Trading Standards officer, while examining one of the seized dolls. “These are clear choking hazards.”

Using a plastic tool modelled after a child’s throat, Harries demonstrated how easily parts of the fake dolls could become life-threatening. “These parts would get stuck and potentially cause choking,” he warned.

The scale of the operation was alarming. Border Force officials say they have intercepted hundreds of thousands of fake Labubu dolls at UK ports in recent months, with many traced back to manufacturers in China, Hong Kong, and Turkey.

In one case, a mother from Caerphilly, Jade, recounted how fake Labubu dolls she bought for her six-year-old son Harri’s birthday began falling apart within hours. “The hook came off and ended up in his mouth,” she said. “Luckily he was old enough to spit it out and tell me.”

Despite knowing the dolls were fakes, Jade said she bought them due to the high cost of the original ones and peer pressure from other children. She got the knock-offs for just over £10 each.

Authorities say the rush to cash in on the craze has led to the use of substandard and potentially dangerous materials, including toxic plastics. Kate Caffery, deputy director of intelligence and law enforcement at the UK’s Intellectual Property Office, said counterfeiting is the second most lucrative source of criminal income worldwide, after drug trafficking.

“There’s a complete disregard for safety,” Caffery said. “They’re made from anything from the inferior to the outright dangerous.”

TikTok collector and plush toy enthusiast Meg Goldberger, 27, said she struggled to find genuine dolls due to scalpers bulk-buying authentic stock and reselling them at inflated prices. “They sell out in seconds,” she said. “Some resellers are using bots to buy hundreds at once.”

Investigators found invoice books showing the dolls were destined for locations across the UK. Some of the seized dolls will be used as evidence, while the rest will be stored in a secure location before being recycled or destroyed.

Pop Mart has been contacted for comment on the counterfeit issue, which authorities say is now a national concern.

Headline

Young Catholics Converge On Rome For Pope Leo’s Vigil

Published

1 day ago

August 2, 2025

Editor

Thousands of young Catholics began assembling Saturday for an evening prayer vigil led by Pope Leo XIV, the culmination of a week-long pilgrimage and a key event in the Jubilee holy year that is expected to draw up to a million people.

The “Jubilee of Youth” — when the Vatican invites Catholics aged 18 to 35 to the seat of the global Church’s power — has seen young pilgrims from around the world flood Rome, waving flags, singing or praying in groups.

It comes nearly three months after Leo, 69, the first American pontiff, began his papacy, and 25 years after the last such massive youth gathering in Rome under Poland’s Pope John Paul II.

On Saturday morning, thousands of young pilgrims had already gathered at the vast open space in Rome’s eastern Tor Vergata neighbourhood where the pope will lead the vigil, the ground already dotted with blankets and mattresses.

Elsewhere in the Eternal City, numerous groups of young people were seen preparing to set off for the venue.

On the plaza outside the Basilica of St John Lateran, they filled water bottles, applied suncream and checked bags of food and snacks — ready to spend the next 24 hours surrounded by a swarm of people and then sleep under the stars.

Victoria Perez, who carried a Spanish flag, could not contain her excitement at seeing “the Pope up close.

“It’s the first time I’m going to see him, and I can’t wait,” the 21-year-old told AFP, excited to experience the “night of prayers under the stars”.

French pilgrim, Quentin Remaury, 26, said he had been inspired by the late Pope Francis’s rousing message to youth during a 2016 visit to Krakow, Poland.

“Pope Francis told us to ‘get off your couches,’ and that really gave me a boost,” he said.

– ‘What is his message?’ –

Since the youth jubilee began on Monday, attendees have participated in various Church-planned events throughout the city.

On Friday, approximately 1,000 priests were on hand to take confession at Circus Maximus, one of Rome’s top tourist spots.

Some 200 white gazebos lined the hippodrome where chariot races were once held, and youths lined up to speak to priests in 10 different languages.

Of the many languages heard on the streets of the Italian capital this week, Spanish seemed to dominate. The Vatican has said that more than 146 countries were represented, and it expects up to a million people to attend the vigil.

The pilgrimage is taking place as economic uncertainty and anxiety over climate change rise among the under-30s, with many saying they were curious to hear the Church’s position on global warming, wars and economic inequalities.

Samarei Semos, 29, said she had travelled three days from her native Belize to get to Rome.

“We are still trying to understand his leadership,” she said of the new pope, adding she hoped he would have a strong say about “third world countries”.

As Parisian student Alice Berry exclaimed, “What does he have to say to us? What is his message for young people?”

– Raising voices –

The youth pilgrimage also comes amid global alarm over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and more than three years of war in Ukraine.

The Vatican has praised young Catholics who managed to travel to Rome from war-scarred countries, with Pope Leo saying the voices of the world’s youth “will be heard to the end of the earth”.

In an unprecedented move, Leo hosted a mass on Tuesday for Catholic social media influencers, signalling the Vatican’s openness to supporting the Internet-savvy youth.

More than 4,300 volunteers will be working the event to welcome the young pilgrims, along with over 1,000 police, according to organisers.

Roman authorities have tightened security in the city — which has seen an unprecedented number of people, with both tourists and pilgrims inundating the city.

AFP

Headline

Ukrainian Drone Strikes Kill Three In Russia

Published

1 day ago

August 2, 2025

Editor

Ukrainian drone strikes killed three people and wounded two others overnight in western Russia, regional governors said on Saturday.

One woman was killed and two other people were wounded in an attack on an enterprise in Penza, the region’s governor, Oleg Melnichenko, wrote on Telegram.

An elderly man was killed inside a house that caught fire due to falling drone debris in the Samara region, Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev posted on Telegram.

In the Rostov region, a guard at an industrial facility was killed after a drone attack and a fire in one of the site’s buildings, acting Rostov governor Yuri Sliusar said.

“The military repelled a massive air attack during the night,” destroying drones over seven districts, Sliusar posted on Telegram.

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems had destroyed 112 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory — 34 over the Rostov region — in a nearly nine-hour period, from Friday night to Saturday morning.

In Ukraine’s central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, overnight Russian drone attacks left three people wounded, governor Sergiy Lysak wrote on Telegram.

Several buildings, homes and cars were damaged, he said.

Russian forces have claimed advances in Dnipropetrovsk, recently announcing the capture of two villages there, part of Moscow’s accelerated capture of territory in July, according to AFP’s analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War.

Kyiv denies any Russian presence in the Dnipropetrovsk area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire in the more than three-year conflict, said Friday that he wanted peace but that his demands for ending Moscow’s military offensive were “unchanged”.

Those demands include that Ukraine abandon territory and end ambitions to join NATO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said only Putin could end the war and renewed his call for a meeting between the two leaders.

“The United States has proposed this. Ukraine has supported it. What is needed is Russia’s readiness,” he wrote on X.

AFP