video transcript

ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION Police in Togo fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse thousands of opposition protesters in the capital Lome on Tuesday (August 21), as tensions over upcoming legislative elections boiled over. Youths burned tyres and threw rocks in cat-and-mouse clashes with security forces in the gritty coastal city, and at least one protester was struck by a rubber bullet and carried away. Opposition leaders organised the protest march to try to press demands for reform ahead of a parliamentary election in October, defying a government ban on demonstrations in commercial centres. It was the latest in a series of violent protests in the West African state, a former French colony with a history of tough crackdowns on dissent, since June, and was called by the opposition-led "Save Togo" campaign.