LOME (AFP) – Another member of Togo’s opposition coalition “Let’s Save Togo” has been arrested and detained on allegation of complicity over the fires that ravaged two markets in January, his lawyer said.
The chairman of the Movement of Centrist Republicans, Abass Kaboua, had last March 12 been charged with “conspiring to destroy public property and criminal association” following the fire incidents.
The judge forbade him from making public statements on the matter.
“Kaboua was arrested on Wednesday. The judge reproached him for speaking on a private radio on the fire issue, over which he was charged. We shall appeal that (court) decision,” lawyer Dodji Apevon said.
Another member of the opposition coalition, Olivier Poko Amah, was previously arrested and detained for allegedly calling on the army to tell President Faure Gnassingbe either to hold talks with the opposition or resign, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Amah, a former police officer, was accused of “making statements aimed at calling on the Togolese armed forces and law enforcement agencies to shirk their responsibilities”, Jil-Benoit Afangbedji stated.
A total of 35 people — mostly members of the opposition — were charged over the fires that ravaged the markets in Lome and in Kara, some 420 kilometres (263 miles) north of the capital. Twenty-three of them were detained in custody. One of them died last May 10.
Opposition political parties and civil society groups have been holding demonstrations in Lome to call for reforms. The protests have often been broken up by police firing teargas.
Security forces last week used teargas to disperse a protest against the opposition member’s death in detention.
The opposition has also called for Gnassingbe’s resignation.
The president has won two elections — denounced as unfair by the opposition — since being installed by the military in 2005 after the death of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled Togo for 38 years with an iron fist.