| schema:articleBody
| - Ivory Coast has banned all outdoor protests until September 15, according to a statement issued on Thursday after deadly clashes ahead of presidential elections in October. The measure "draws the consequences of the impact, in human and property terms, from previous demonstrations and the risk that pockets of inter-community conflicts could open up", the government said in a statement. On August 13, protests erupted in the economic hub Abidjan and demonstrations in the central town of Daoukro turned to bloody ethnic clashes after President Alassane Ouattara announced he would bid for a third term. Critics of Ouattara say the 78-year-old is only able to run again on October 31 thanks to a 2016 change to the constitution that bypasses a two-term limit. Three days of violence led to six deaths and about 100 injuries, according to an official toll published on Wednesday. Additionally, 1,500 people fled their homes, 69 people were arrested and "numerous acts of property damage" were recorded. Ivory Coast, one of the world's biggest producers of coffee and cocoa, is still traumatised by a brief civil war that erupted after elections in 2010, when president Laurent Gbagbo refused to cede to Ouattara. More than 3,000 lives were lost in a months-long conflict which divided the country along north-south lines. In March this year, Outtara signalled that he would bow out of politics and pass the baton to his prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly. But that scenario dramatically changed when Coulibaly died of a heart attack on July 8. With no other appropriate successor in sight, Ouattara announced on August 8 that he would run for a third term after all. Daoukro is a stronghold of former president Henri Konan Bedie, who is standing again at the age of 86. The protests there lurched into a battle along ethnic lines after a local man was shot dead, an AFP reporter found this week. The man was a member of the Baoule ethnic group which largely supports Bedie, himself a Baoule, and the finger of blame was pointed at local members of the Malinke people, deemed to support Ouattara. In a separate development, the head of a campaign group who had called for protests against a third Ouattara term was charged on Thursday, her lawyer said. Pulcherie Gbalet, head of a group called Ivorian Citizens' Alternative (ACI), which is close to the opposition, was charged with "incitement to revolt, disturbing public order (and) violence", said her lawyer, Lambert Kame Bene. Gbalet, arrested on Saturday, has been placed in custody in Abidjan's central prison, he said. ck/ri/jxb
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)