Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
24-09-2024
DAR-ES-SALAAM: Police have cracked down on a planned protest against the government organized by Tanzania’s main opposition party.
The leaders of Chadema were arrested on Monday, the party said. Further arrests were made on the streets of the Magomeni area of the capital Dar-es-Salaam where protesters were gathering for a rally against alleged killings and abductions of government critics.
The crackdown extends fears of renewed political repression in the East African country ahead of upcoming local elections and next year’s national vote.
Video footage posted on X by Chadema showed police arresting the party chairman, Freeman Mbowe, as he arrived “to lead a peaceful protest”.
A separate post showed police outside the home of deputy chairman Tundu Lissu before he was taken into custody.
Police said they had arrested 14 people, including Mbowe and Lissu, for defying a prohibition on the protests.
In advance of these arrests, the police were seen blockading the homes of both party leaders.
Lissu, who survived an assassination attempt in 2016 despite being shot 16 times, earlier wrote on social media platform X that three police vehicles full of officers in riot gear were outside his house.
“They’ve informed me I’m directed to be taken to the Regional Crimes Officer. I’m getting ready to go,” he said.
Over the weekend, Dar-es-Salaam police chief Jumanne Muliro had warned that the planned rally would breach the peace and that his officers would take strict action to prevent it.
Riot police with water cannon have been deployed across key areas of the city since Saturday.
Chadema has accused the government of President Samia Suluhu Hassan of returning Tanzania to the repressive tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli.
In a speech broadcast on X on Sunday, Mbowe insisted that the planned protest would be peaceful.
“We are neither carrying any weapons nor planning to violate the peace as some people allege,” he said. “We have seen the deployment of armed police officers in the city but we are ready to face them.”
When Chadema last tried to hold a rally in August, police arrested hundreds.
Rights groups and Western governments, including the United States, have criticized the crackdowns as “antidemocratic”.
Last week, police have detained opposition leaders and rounded up several hundred supporters as they halted a planned rally.
Leaders of the opposition Chadema party, including former presidential candidate Tundu Lissu, were arrested on Monday in the southwestern city of Mbeya, a party official announced through social media. The police had previously banned the rally, claiming that violence was planned.
The Tanzanian police action comes amid a wave of protests that has swept other parts of sub-Saharan Africa in recent weeks, including nearby Kenya and Uganda. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
