Senegal’s Justice Minister, Ousmane Diagne, has announced the opening of judicial investigations into alleged human rights violations that occurred during political demonstrations between 2021 and 2024, marking the first formal response to mounting calls from rights advocates, including the “Zero Impunity” initiative.
In a letter dated 1 August 2025, addressed to President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Diagne confirmed that the appeals from “Zero Impunity” had been taken into account. He instructed the Public Prosecutor at the Dakar Court of Appeal to initiate inquiries into cases involving killings, torture, inhuman treatment, and enforced disappearances during that period.
Rights campaigners have hailed the move as a potential turning point in Senegal’s human rights landscape. Among them is activist and student Bab Abdoulaye Touré, a co-founder of the “Zero Impunity” initiative and himself a torture survivor, who described the announcement as “a strong signal” of the new administration’s commitment to ending impunity and rebuilding public trust in the judiciary.
The announcement follows the circulation in June of widely shared and deeply disturbing images showing Touré in detention, handcuffed, and wearing wet, soiled clothing. The images triggered public outrage and renewed demands for accountability. Associates of Touré have accused a minister from the previous administration of orchestrating what they described as a “torture session,” urging the government to deliver justice for victims and prosecute those responsible.
The case has now been referred to the National Gendarmerie’s Research Division, a move described by local media as the start of a long-overdue judicial process that could shed light on a dark chapter in the country’s recent political history.
