Abidjan – The party of former Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo said on Sunday that two more of its members had been arrested as part of a campaign of “intimidation” by the authorities.
Critics have accused the west African nation’s government of seeking to silence the opposition ahead of a presidential election in which incumbent Alassane Ouattara will seek a constitutionally contested fourth term.
Gbagbo is among the opposition figures barred from running by the courts, while the police have made a spate of arrests targeting dissenting activists in recent weeks.
Gbagbo’s African People’s Party of Ivory Coast (PPACI) said former defence minister Moise Lida Kouassi and ex-ambassador Boubacar Kone have been held in pre-trial detention since Friday, accused of being responsible for unrest that broke out on the sidelines of a protest the previous week.
On the night of August 1 to 2, a bus was set on fire while a police car was vandalised by individuals armed with machetes, firearms and incendiary cocktails in the Yopougon commune of the economic capital Abidjan, according to prosecutors.
Eleven people were arrested in connection with the scenes in Yopougon, where thousands marched on Saturday against Ouattara’s candidacy at a rally called by the PPACI and the fellow opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), which passed off without incident.
Denying any involvement in the assaults on the bus and police car, the PPACI urged the immediate release of its detained members.
According to the PPACI, six of its members were “kidnapped” last weekend, and the party has not heard from them since.
“The PPACI demands the immediate liberation of Moise Lida Kouassi and Boubacar Kone and of prisoners of conscience of all stripes,” said Sebastien Dano Djedje, the party’s executive president, complaining of “a campaign of intimidation and repression” as well as “judicial and political harassment”.
Speaking Sunday evening on the private channel NCI 360, Prosecutor Oumar Braman Kone declined to comment on specific investigations but insisted the prosecution’s actions “are not based on party politics.”
“There has never been a kidnapping. They are in open court proceedings and are in proper detention facilities,” he added.
Ouattara’s opponents have questioned the legality of Ouattara’s mandates as the law limited him to two, until the adoption of a new constitution in 2016 reset the term counter to zero.
Gbagbo is a bitter rival of Ouattara, with the former’s refusal to concede defeat after 2010 elections leading to unrest in which more than 3,000 people were killed.
He was acquitted of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
But the courts barred him from running against Ouattara on the basis of a conviction in Ivory Coast stemming from that post-election crisis.
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Source: AFP
