The Senegal government blocked access to the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok on Wednesday as part of a general crackdown on dissent following the arrest of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko.
The official reason for restricting TikTok was that malicious actors were using the platform to foment unrest and destabilize the government of sitting President Macky Sall.
“The TikTok application is the social network favored by people with bad intentions to spread hateful and subversive messages,” said communications minister Moussa Bocar Thiam.
Wednesday’s announcement was an afterthought in some respects since Thiam’s agency restricted mobile Internet access in general on Monday, ostensibly due to the “dissemination of hateful and subversive messages on social networks.”
Protests broke out in Senegal on Monday following the arrest of Sonko, leader of the Patriots of Senegal (PASTEF) party, on charges of fomenting an “insurrection.” Sall’s government also dissolved the PASTEF party on Monday, enraging its supporters and plunging the formerly stable country into violent unrest.
Ousmane Sonko addresses his supporters on March 16, 2023, in Dakar, Senegal. (Annika Hammerschlag/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Sonko is a 49-year-old populist and nationalist whose social media savvy made him enormously popular with Senegalese youth. His platform includes open resentment of France, which was Senegal’s primary trading partner until China surpassed it four years ago. His meteoric rise in politics included election to the National Assembly, a third-place finish in the 2019 presidential election, and a stint as mayor of the southern city of Ziguinchor.
Sonko’s critics point to his uninspiring mayoral term as proof he is a populist blowhard who has little interest or skill in governing, while his devoted supporters say he has been sabotaged by constant politically motivated prosecutions since 2021 when he was accused of rape.
Sonko stirred up a fresh round of controversy in May when he described the alleged victim of his sexual assault as too ugly for him to consider ravishing and boasted that a chick magnet like himself would have no reason to force himself on a woman in any event.
“Even if I had to rape, I would not rape someone who looks like a monkey that has had a stroke,” he said. “Do you think that I, Ousmane Sonko, am so in need of a woman that I would rape a woman?”
This was a bit much for even some of Sonko’s dedicated young followers, especially after he was denounced by a coalition of prominent Senegalese in an open letter that accused him of reinforcing “the culture of rape,” but his support soon recovered.
Opposition leader Ousmane Sonko holds a slingshot during a meeting in Ziguinchor on May 24, 2023. Thousands of supporters gathered in Ziguinchor against Sonko’s arrest during his rape trial. (MUHAMADOU BITTAYE/AFP via Getty Images)
In June, a court in the capital city of Dakar acquitted Sonko on the rape charge but convicted him of “corrupting youth.” Sonko refused to attend the trial, so he was sentenced, in absentia, to two years in prison. He was under house arrest on Monday when he was arrested on the insurrection charge.
The insurrection allegations flow, in part, from Sonko urging his reporters to “stop all activity and take to the streets” after his conviction for “corrupting youth,” which disqualifies him from running for the presidency in 2024. In July, he staged a march on Dakar to defy his conviction, demonstrate his enduring popularity, and clarify that he still intends to run in 2024.
Supporters gather to protest after Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko was jailed for two years for “corrupting youth” in Dakar, Senegal, on June 1, 2023. (Annika Hammerschlag/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“I’ll meet you in Dakar. Either Macky Sall steps back, or we will face him to put an end to this. Where will the final battle take place? It will happen in Dakar,” Sonko told his supporters.
Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome signed a decree on Monday abolishing PASTEF because Sonko and other leaders were “frequently calling on its supporters to insurrectional movements, which has led to serious consequences, including loss of life, many wounded, as well as acts of looting of public and private property.”
“I have just been unjustly placed in custody,” Sonko said after his arrest. “If the Senegalese people, for whom I have always fought, abdicate and decide to leave me in the hands of Macky Sall’s regime, I will submit, as always, to divine will.”
According to his lawyers, Sonko launched a hunger strike on Sunday to protest his arrest.