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Police fire tear gas on protesters in Guinea

Tuesday October 23 2018
NewConde

Guinea Conakry President Alpha Conde. FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By AFP

Guinean police fired tear gas on opposition youths Tuesday in the capital Conakry where they staged a rally over disputed February local elections in defiance of a ban.

After attempting to block traffic in Conakry's Cosa district, several hundred protesters lobbed stones at police who responded with tear gas, an AFP reporter said.

The opposition had on Monday urged supporters to go ahead with the protest despite a ban by local authorities citing safety concerns for schools in the area.

New officials

"Any gathering that provokes a march or attempts to block traffic will be repressed," riot police chief General Ansoumane Camara told reporters earlier.

"We are here to apply the law."

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The opposition claims President Alpha Conde's government has reneged on a deal to install new officials elected in the contested February 4 municipal ballot, the first such vote since the end of a military dictatorship a decade ago.

"We do not need to respect what the local mayor says, because we have the impression we are in a lawless country," Fode Oussou Fofana, vice-president of the opposition UFDG party, said on Monday in the call to defy the ban.

Local councils

Tensions have been high in the West African country since the death on October 16 of a protester during a two-day opposition campaign aimed at bringing Conakry to a standstill.

Relatives say he was shot in the chest by riot police, while a police spokesman said he was hit by a stray bullet.

Authorities have started to install new municipal officials, with the opposition accusing the government of bribing some of them to keep control of local councils across the former French colony.

The municipal elections had been repeatedly delayed because of political infighting and the Ebola crisis in 2013-16.

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