In Côte d’Ivoire, protesting is a difficult right to exercise. On Friday 13 September, 25 members of the citizen platform Agir pour le peuple (AGIP) were arrested in Abidjan. Five days later, sixteen of them were sentenced by the Yopougon court to six months in prison for “disturbing public order”. The general secretary of the group, Armand Krikpeu, remains in Abidjan prison awaiting trial on four charges: inciting insurrection, endangering state security, disturbing public order and occupying public places. He faces up to twenty years in prison.
However, the march was aimed at “pacifist” and registered “in a republican approach respectful of the rule of law,” “, the platform, which brings together 78 groups and associations, pleads in a statement. Dressed in white T-shirts to indicate their non-violent intentions, several hundred demonstrators, according to AGIP, will gather in the Place de la République, located in the administrative and political centre of the Meseta, to make their demands heard.
The first of them: “Reduce the cost of food and electricity”while the price of the latter rose by 10% in January. So “the immediate cessation of evictions” (destruction of shanty towns) underway since the beginning of the year in Abidjan. And finally, “maintain a framework for consultation” policy to avoid a presidential election “violent and chaotic” end of 2025.
The rally ultimately never took place, despite the assurances that AGIP officials claim to have received on September 10 from police headquarters. On the 11th, the movement formalized the holding of its demonstration at a press conference, but on the same day a circular prohibited it, proof, according to the movement, of “The duplicity of the authorities.” On Friday, the first to go out on the street “They were brutally beaten, all they had to do was wear a white coat and they risked being arrested”The spokesperson for the platform, Dihignité Dah Sansan, said. The Abidjan police headquarters did not respond to our requests or communicate these facts.
A few weeks earlier, the AGIP had tried, in vain, to raise its complaints with the authorities and to seek the support of the main opposition parties. Only the African Peoples’ Party-Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI), of former President Laurent Gbagbo, reacted officially by denouncing “the perfidy of power, arbitrary arrests and unjust sentences.” A sign of links between AGIP and the opposition? “Of course not, we are completely independent”defends Dihignité Dah Sansan.
In red and black
This is not the first time this year that protest voices have been silenced. In March, a demonstration against evictions was quickly stopped and 43 people were arrested. In July, clashes broke out in the popular commune of Adjamé in Abidjan, again sparked by the destruction of homes with bulldozers.
“Getting permission to demonstrate has become almost impossible,” says Hervé Delmas Kokou, Executive Director of Amnesty International in Côte d’Ivoire. A year before the presidential elections, “This restriction on access to public space risks becoming even harsher and causing words of protest to disappear even further. “, worries the human rights organization, which warned a few months ago about “excessive use of force”.
In June, the government published an order aimed at tightening control over associative life in the name of the fight against terrorism and money laundering. The Ivorian Observatory for Human Rights (OIDH) considers this to be an attack on freedom of assembly and therefore freedom of expression, while most opposition parties criticise it. “excessive interference” of power.
The State is concerned about the contagion of ideas now prevalent in Mali and Burkina Faso, countries led by coup plotters who have made Abidjan an enemy of their cause. “Every demonstration is seen as a potential plot organised from outside”Hervé Delmas Kokou points out that by trying to be more vigilant, the country could be deviating from respecting certain fundamental rights, including the right to demonstrate.
In addition to demanding the release of its activists, the AGIP is still waiting for a gesture from the authorities to “open the debate” in their demands. If not, the movement plans to demonstrate again on Friday 27 September, with or without permission. And this time in red and black, the colours of growing anger.
