Tanzania arrests 520 people in mass opposition crackdown

Nairobi, August 13, 2024 – The Tanzanian police said on Tuesday they had arrested more than 500 people, including top opposition leaders, as they planned to attend a youth rally, a stunning development in the East African nation where a pathbreaking female president had once promised to restore political freedoms.

Some 520 people were arrested across the country ahead of a Monday rally in the southwestern city of Mbeya, Awadh J. Haji, the police commissioner for operations and training, said in a statement. The police, he said, also seized 25 vehicles that had been transporting people going to the rally and officials from different regions in the country.

The rally was organized by the opposition Chadema party, which said it wanted to mark International Youth Day. But the police banned the gathering before it was underway, and accused party members of making statements that showed their intention to carry out anti-government protests similar to those that swept across neighboring Kenya in recent months.

“Their goal is not to celebrate International Youth Day, but to initiate and commit violence to cause disruption of peace in the country,” Mr. Haji said.

The latest crackdown does not augur well for Tanzania, whose president promised to oversee a more open nation after coming to power in 2021. The country’s first female leader, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, reversed some of the measures put in place by her populist predecessor, including by lifting a yearslong ban on political rallies, easing restrictions on the press and allowing pregnant girls to attend school.

Tanzania was one of three African nations that Vice President Kamala Harris visited last year in her efforts to bolster democratic governance and women’s empowerment in the continent.

But since then, Ms. Hassan’s government has been accused of cracking down on protests against a port management deal, forcibly evicting Maasai communities from their land, suspending news media outlets and arresting journalists — issues that activists say are alarming as the country prepares for local elections in December and a general election next year.

Ms. Hassan has also been criticized for delaying wider reforms, including a review of the country’s Constitution, which grants vast powers to the executive branch and was adopted in 1977, when the country was still a one-party state.

Ms. Hassan’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The planned youth rally in Tanzania comes as anti-government protests have gripped African countries, including Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. Demonstrators have focused their ire on government officials, whom they accuse of corruption and overseeing bad economic policies.

In Tanzania, among those arrested was Freeman Mbowe, the chairman of the Chadema party, and his deputy in the mainland, Tundu Lissu. Mr. Mbowe was released from prison in 2022 after charges against him related to terrorism were dropped.

Over the years, Mr. Lissu has become a key detractor of the governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi party — or Party of the Revolution — which has ruled the country since it declared independence. In 2017, he survived an assassination attempt and left the country, but he returned to run for president in the 2020 elections. Facing harassment and intimidation after the bloody and contentious vote, Mr. Lissu again left the country. He returned last year, encouraged by Ms. Hassan’s decision to lift a ban on political rallies, he said.

Mr. Lissu was arrested in Mbeya on Sunday as he and other party members were gathering in the city for the rally. He, Mr. Mbowe and other top officials were released on Tuesday after posting bail, according to a statement from the party posted on social media. The party said its office in Mbeya was “surrounded by the police and they are not allowing people to enter” them.

The latest clampdown has drawn criticism from rights groups who have called on Ms. Hassan to stop them. As elections near, the mass arrests of government opponents were “a deeply worrying sign” for the country, Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for East and Southern Africa, said in an emailed statement.

On Tuesday, the police said they will closely monitor any planned protests or gatherings and will decisively deal with anyone who they say breaches the law.

“The police force continues to closely monitor various information related to plans to break the peace,” Mr. Haji said. “Whoever is identified will be dealt with strictly according to the law, regardless of their rank, position or ideology.”