Heavily armed Policemen were deployed in Senegal’s capital Dakar yesterday ahead of Saturday’s vote on a contested proposed law that would define ‘seriously disturbing public order’ as an act of terrorism in the West African country.
The Senegalese government have explained that the bill is intended to strengthen its fight against terror groups, but opposition figures strongly believe that it would criminalise dissent.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that one clause describes ‘seriously disturbing public order’ as an act of terrorism, while another calls for people convicted of terrorism to be jailed for life.
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The Movement for the Defence of Democracy (MDD), an opposition coalition, urged people to demonstrate against the bill on Friday.
‘This bill kills our democracy because it will accuse any dissenter of terrorism,‘ Babacar Diop, an MDD leader, told a press conference late Thursday, calling the proposed legislation ‘freedom-killing’.
The vote, to be held Friday morning, comes amid the uncertainty in Senegal over whether President Macky Sall will seek a controversial third term.
Senegalese presidents are limited to two consecutive terms, but some fear Sall will seek to exploit constitutional changes approved in a 2016 referendum to run again in 2024.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that on Thursday, thousands of people demonstrated in Dakar against a possible third term for the 59-year-old president.
MDD representatives also told reporters that the anti-terror legislation is designed to suppress demonstrations in the event of a third-term bid by Salls.
In the bill, the government argues that current anti-terror legislation does ‘not fully cover certain issues,’ and points to areas such as terror financing in which the law needs to be strengthened.
Aymerou Gningue, the chairman of the parliamentary bloc allied to the president, told reporters that terrorism had become more complex, saying the new law is designed to combat the problem in ‘all its forms’.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK