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Geopolitics

Bloody Weekend Covers Dutch Front Page

De Telegraaf, Dec. 12, 2016

Deadly blasts in major cities around the world returned, seemingly in sync the past two days. Dutch daily De Telegraaf"s Monday front page reads: "Weekend of attacks' above two pictures of crying women, one in Istanbul where 44 people died Saturday, the other in Cairo, where at least 25 were killed on Sunday.

The death toll of a twin bomb explosion outside an Istanbul stadium on Saturday has risen to 44, including 36 police officers, with dozens more wounded, Hurriyetreports. After the attack, which was claimed by Kurdish terrorists, Turkish police arrested 118 officials from the pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP.

In Cairo, at least 25 worshippers were killed yesterday in a bomb explosion at the city's largest Coptic cathedral that also left many wounded. Mada Masr reports that the explosion occurred just before communion, when the church is the most crowded. "The choice of this time would ensure the highest casualty count," a church deacon said. No organization has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, the worst on Egypt's Christian minority in years.

The bloody weekend was also marked by the death of at least 20 people as a car bomb filled with explosives rammed into the main entrance of a port Sunday morning in Mogadishu, Somalia.

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Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

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