Government shuts down internet due to protesters

Togolese authorities on Thursday blocked Internet access as opponents of President Faure Gnassingbe marched for a second day against his family’s 50-year rule.

Hundreds of protesters marched from the opposition stronghold of Be and met in central Lome, with police officers walking calmly beside them.

A witness said the scale of this week’s protests, which the opposition said were attended by hundreds of thousands of people, represented the biggest challenge to Gnassingbe’s rule since his ascension to power in 2005.

In the past, security forces violently suppressed protests, killing at least two people during an opposition march in August and hundreds got injured after a contested election in 2005.

U.S.-based company Dyn, which monitored the Internet, said traffic dropped off at 0900 GMT in what critics said was a move by the government to suppress protests as other African incumbents have done.

Residents said that text messages had also been blocked and the communications minister could not immediately be reached for comment.

Analysts said he may find himself isolated amid growing criticism of autocratic rule in West Africa.

“The president’s position is very fragile and we do not think his peers in ECOWAS or his friends in Europe will help him if things get ugly,” the head of research at NKC African Economics, Francois Conradie.

Gnassingbe, who took power after his long-ruling father’s death, has sought to appease opponents by introducing a draft bill to reform the constitution this week.

Such changes would reintroduce a two-term limit that was scrapped by the late Gnassingbe Eyadema in 2002.

But opposition leaders are sceptical that this would apply retroactively, meaning the current president might stay until 2030.

They have called for his immediate departure.

Togo, a regional financial hub that aspires to be an African Singapore, is at odds with West African neighbours which mostly have laws restricting presidential mandates.

The government along with Gambia’s voted in 2015 against introducing them across the 15 members of the ECOWAS regional body which Gnassingbe currently chairs.

African rulers, notably in Rwanda, Burundi and Burkina Faso, have moved to drop term limits in recent years in order to remain in power.

In some cases this has sparked strong opposition that has led to violent unrest. (Reuters/NAN)