Baton-wielding riot police was deployed in Lome on Tuesday ahead of a banned opposition march to protest the result of Togo's presidential election, won by incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe.
 
Police set up roadblocks in the Togolese capital's working-class Be district that is home to the headquarters of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), an AFP correspondent reported. UFC is headed by main opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Fabre.
 
Fabre has refused to recognise his defeat and claimed that Gnassingbe, who was first put in power in 2005 by the military upon the death of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who had ruled for 38 years, won the election by fraud.
 
The government on Monday banned the opposition's planned demonstration against the result of the March 4 vote, amid mounting unease after clashes at the last presidential election left hundreds dead.
 
On Tuesday, a group of around 200 youths defied police and gathered on one of Be's main streets.
 
"43 years is too much! Our country isn't a kingdom or an inheritance," said one of them, 22-year-old Agbe Gnaglo.
 
Armed riot police on Sunday violently put down a demonstration by more than 200 opposition supporters, while Fabre himself was forced to take shelter in the UFC headquarters.
 
Source: AFP