Ousmane Sonko, President Macky Sall's fiercest critic, was on Monday charged with fomenting insurrection and his party dissolved, prompting clashes between protesters and police in which two people were reportedly killed.
Senegal's interior ministry said protests erupted Monday afternoon in the southern city of Ziguinchor where Sonko is mayor.
Groups of young people threw stones at police, who tried to disperse them with tear gas, according to journalists at the scene.
The ministry press release said "two lifeless male bodies" were discovered, but did got give details of the circumstances of the deaths.
Sporadic clashes also broke out on Monday evening in the suburbs of Dakar, journalists said. Demonstrators burned tyres and set up roadblocks while chanting "Free Sonko", before being dispersed by police with tear gas.
Less than two hours after Sonko's indictment, the interior minister announced that his PASTEF party would be dissolved for having "frequently" called for insurrection, leading to destruction and the loss of life.
Anti-democratic
The party slammed the move, saying in a statement that the country's stability was "now compromised", and that the dissolution was "anti-democratic".
The leading opposition figure has faced a string of legal woes, which he claims have been designed to keep him out of politics and jeopardise his participation in the February 2024 presidential election.
Sonko's sentencing in June in absentia to two years in prison in a moral corruption case sparked clashes that left 16 dead according to the government, 24 according to Amnesty International, and 30 according to PASTEF.
He had not been jailed despite that conviction, which rendered him ineligible to stand in next year's election.
Hunger strike
On Friday, he was arrested after claiming on social media that security forces had been filming him outside his house and that he had snatched one of the phones to ask them to delete it.
The new charges include undermining state security, criminal association with a terrorist body, disseminating false news and theft.
"It's a farce," Cire Cledor Ly, one of Sonko's lawyers, told reporters outside the courthouse on Monday.
"It's a plot that was formed, thought out, planned and executed."
Sonko, who has a passionate following among Senegal's disaffected youth, on Monday continued a hunger strike he began a day earlier, his lawyers said. They did not say where he would be held.
"I have just been unjustly placed in custody", 49-year-old Sonko wrote on Facebook on Monday afternoon.
"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", he said.
Train line cut
Earlier on Monday, authorities announced they were restricting mobile internet access due to "hateful and subversive" messages on social media.
Amnesty International condemned the internet restrictions, calling them an "attack on freedom of information".
The company operating the fast train link between Dakar and its suburbs also said it would halt the line due to "malicious acts" committed by protesters.
A former civil servant, Sonko rose to prominence in the 2019 presidential election, coming third.
He has portrayed Sall as a would-be dictator, while the president's supporters say Sonko has sown instability.
Sall in early July eased tensions in the normally stable West African nation by announcing he would not seek a controversial third mandate, following months of ambiguity and speculation about his intentions.
(with AFP)
