By Jerrywright Ukwu
In a move to clamp down on the growing unrest over the dissolution of the country's opposition party, the Senegalese government has suspended the use of the social media app, Tiktok.
The authorities blocked all access to Tiktok, widening a clampdown on protests days after the dissolution and detention of the opposition leader.
According to the Senegalese minister of communication and the digital economy, Moussa Bocar Thiam, Tiktok is a social network of choice for ill-intentioned people to spread hateful and subversive messages.
Thiam, in a statement released on Wednesday, August 2, said the messages spread on TikTok are "threatening the stability of the country."
The decision by the government to suspend TikTok comes barely 48 hours after mobile data access was cut off on Monday.
Human rights groups have also condemned the measure adopted by the Senegalese government.
Trouble began in the country following the power tussle between the leader of PASTEF party, Ousmane Sonko, and President Macky Sall.
While there is no reaction from the opposition, demonstrators have taken to the streets of Dakar to register their displeasure over the government's action.
Sonko had been held in custody over allegations of plotting an insurrection. Charges against him by the Sall-led government include undermining state security, criminal association with a "terrorist" body, disseminating false news, and theft.
His first reaction to his arrest and detention was on Facebook, where he wrote on Monday, "I have just been unjustly placed in custody."
"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 added.