Coline Fay is free.
This French woman, imprisoned in Senegal since her participation in mid-November in a demonstration in support of opponent Ousmane Sonko, was deported to France, one of her lawyers, Me Cheikh Koureyssi Ba, told AFP.
“Coline Fay is expelled, it was the judge himself” who informed me of this, declared Me Koureyssi Ba on the night of Thursday to Friday.
The information was confirmed by another of her counsel in France, Me Juan Branco, who specified in a message to AFP that she should arrive Friday morning in Paris.
“It’s a sigh of relief,” reacted Me Koureyssi Ba to the announcement of her release, specifying that she is “under the responsibility of the police” until her arrival in France, but without the presence of his lawyers.
“She’s in good spirits.
She is a resilient girl,” added Me Ba.
Why was the French woman in prison?
Coline Fay, who got involved with the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion during her studies in Spain, came to work in Senegal as a physiotherapist in a center for pregnant women.
On November 17, she was arrested after a demonstration in support of Ousmane Sonko, the main opponent of current Senegalese President Macky Sall, in front of the Dakar Supreme Court.
The 26-year-old young woman was accused, among other things, of “conspiracy against the authority of the State” and “acts or maneuvers likely to compromise public security”, and was charged again last week for “attempting to leave irregular correspondence”.
“These were circumstantial prosecutions bordering on the ridiculous,” said Me Ba.
She faced life imprisonment.
A “clearly disproportionate” sentence, Véronique Murat, his mother, was indignant, recalling that the “right to demonstrate is an international right”.
Incarcerated at the Liberté 6 women's remand center, the young woman began a hunger strike, which was interrupted after ten days.
“It was the only way for her to protest, she found herself helpless,” said Véronique Murat.
“Free Coline”
Since her incarceration, several gatherings of dozens of people at the initiative of Coline Fay's relatives have been held in Grenoble (Isère), where she is from.
Her relatives, united in the movement called “Free Coline”, regularly warned about the fate of the young woman.
This weekend, other people in Dijon and Toulouse joined protests for Coline's release.
We ask for a response as to the concrete measures taken by the Ministry of International Affairs to ensure the repatriation of Coline.#FreeColine pic.twitter.com/JV2BJ0SfTA
— FreeColine (@FreeColineFay) January 15, 2024
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna was questioned in mid-December on this subject in a letter sent by the young woman's lawyer, Juan Branco, and two left-wing deputies, the ecologist Aurélien Taché and the Insoumise Sophia Chikirou.
The French government had urged the Senegalese authorities to expedite the young girl's case, according to Me Ba.
The country under political tension
For her lawyers, the arrest of the young woman was part of "a climate of political tension in Senegal" and "authoritarian excesses exercised by the Dakar regime, under the presidency of Macky Sall, towards dissident voices and popular movements, particularly those associated with the political opposition led by Ousmane Sonko.
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Coline Fay's lawyers are also among those of Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko, currently imprisoned.
Found guilty in June of debauchery of a minor and sentenced to two years in prison, he was imprisoned at the end of July on other charges, including calling for insurrection, criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise and to state security.
Ousmane Sonko denounces in these cases a plot to prevent him from participating in the presidential election of February 2024, which the government denies.