Human Rights Watch on Monday denounced Senegal for repressing opposition leaders, media and civil society, in a report published weeks before the West African nation holds presidential election.

HRW highlighted numerous concerns in its report.

“President Macky Sall’s promise to hold free and fair elections is at odds with the reality that the authorities have been filling prisons for the last three years with hundreds of political opponents,” the report said.

“The authorities should effectively investigate all security force violence, release people arbitrarily detained, and guarantee the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.”

As HRW released its report, Senegalese Justice Minister Aissata Tall Sall was in Geneva, insisting that “all political freedoms and freedoms of expression are recognised” in her country.

Sall said the February 25 elections would be organised “in peace and stability and respect for republican and democratic principles”.

The report came just two days after Senegal’s Constitutional Council published a final list of 20 candidates for the presidential election, which excluded jailed opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade, the son of former president Abdoulaye Wade.

Those making the list include Prime Minister Amadou Ba, chosen by President Macky Sall as his successor after Sall announced in July that he would not seek a third term.

Sonko, third in the 2019 presidential election, has been at the centre of a bitter stand-off with the state that has lasted more than two years and sparked often deadly unrest.

The 49-year-old opposition figure has generated a passionate following among Senegal’s disaffected youth, striking a chord with his pan-Africanist rhetoric and tough stance towards former colonial power France.

The Constitutional Council rejected Sonko’s candidacy due to his six-month suspended sentence for defamation, which was upheld by the Supreme Court on January 4.

HRW accused the security forces of resorting to “excessive force”, including use of live ammunition and improper use of tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters across the country in March 2021 and June 2023. It said at least 37 people had been killed during violent clashes since March 2021 with no accountability.

“Young people died, and their families are yet to see any justice done,” the NGO quoted Alioune Tine, a prominent Senegalese human rights activist and founder of the research organization AfrikaJom, as saying.

HRW said it compiled its report after interviewing 34 people, including opposition party members and members of civil society groups, journalists, lawyers and university professors, between November 2023 and January 2024.

It also reviewed reports by national and international media, including photographs of a protester’s injuries in June 2023 and a video showing gendarmes torturing a protester the same month.

The group added it had sent its findings to the justice ministry and requested a response, but had not received one.