Senegal: Three TikTok creators sentenced to prison over video deemed insulting to President Faye

A court in Dakar has handed prison terms to three TikTok content creators after convicting them of insulting Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, with the verdict announced on Thursday, August 6, 2026.

All three defendants are linked to the media outlet Feenal Digital, and the harshest punishment went to Mandoumbe Diop, better known online as Lamignou Darou and by far the most followed of the trio, with more than 500,000 TikTok followers, who received three months behind bars with no possibility of suspension.

His co-accused, Magueye Diaw and Moustapha Ndiaye, were each given two-month terms without parole and ordered to pay roughly $800 (500,000 CFA francs) in fines.

At the heart of the case is a clip the men shared in late July, in which they voiced hopes that misfortune would befall whoever had “betrayed” the PASTEF movement, language that never named a specific person but which prosecutors interpreted as directed at President Faye.

Cybercrime officers moved in on July 27, detaining the three at Feeñal Digital’s Dakar newsroom before they were formally charged under Article 254 of the penal code for offending the head of state, alongside a public-morals allegation.

Defence attorney Abdy Nar Ndiaye told the court the video was nothing more than banter among friends meant to be funny, insisting it fell well short of criminal conduct, which is an argument the judges rejected, though the defence has signalled plans to appeal a verdict that remains open to reversal.

Beyond the courtroom, the sentencing has stirred wider unease about the state of free expression in Senegal, landing squarely amid a rupture within the governing coalition.

Feenal Digital is widely viewed as aligned with ex-Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, whom Faye removed from office in May before Sonko went on to become speaker of the National Assembly, falling out between two men who once led PASTEF’s rise together.

Rights advocates warn that punishing online satire this way threatens to erode Senegal’s image as a democratic standard-bearer in the region, a concern sharpened by signs that the country’s recent gains in press-freedom rankings have begun to plateau.