Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Supporters of Ex-Ivorian President Gbagbo Hold Demonstration at Hague

Supporters of ex-Ivorian President Gbagbo hold demo at Hague

Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:0AM GMT
presstv.ir

Supporters of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo have gathered in front of a court building in the Netherlands, where Gbagbo’s procedural pre-trial hearing is taking place.

Hundreds of Gbagbo’s supporters camped in front of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Tuesday to protest against his detention.

The ICC prosecutors say Gbagbo committed crimes against humanity during the four-month civil war in Ivory Coast in 2010, which killed about 3,000 people and displaced around a million.

“Our president has been illegally detained, he has been taken in custody, and that is not fair, because he is the official winner of the election in Ivory Coast, so we don’t understand why he is still here and nobody seems to care about it,” said one of the supporters.

Dutch police officers were present at the demonstration to protect the court building.

However, Gbagbo did not attend the hearing and his lawyer, Emmanuel Altit, continued his line of defense.

“He cannot be taken responsible eternally for the things that are going wrong in Ivory Coast,” Altit said.

In September 2002, a civil war broke out in Ivory Coast after Ivorian northerners rebelled against Gbagbo’s government, which had barred their mentor Alassane Ouattara from running in the 2000 presidential election.

Ivory Coast, which is the world’s top cocoa producer, was also engulfed in chaos after former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat in the November 2010 presidential election and hung onto power until being driven out by supporters of President Alassane Ouattara in April 2011.

1 comment:

davidrolde said...

I wish that Press TV had mentioned that the "supporters of President Alassane Ouattara" who drove Gbagbo out in April 2011 were thousands of French troops!