Price protests expose state faults

Cheikh Diouf, from the rural community of Diakhao, walked out of a courtroom in Dakar in mid-April a free man. He was found not guilty of charges that he had “disturbed order” in Senegal’s parliament. The week before, he had managed to slip past security guards at the country’s National Assembly. As parliamentary deputies, during a break in their deliberations, walked to a restaurant in the building, Mr. Diouf brandished an empty rice sack on which he had written “The people are hungry.”