The opposition Chadema denounces that an advisor to his women’s wing was kidnapped and tortured this weekend
20 (EUROPA PRESS)
UN human rights experts have noted an increase in political violence in Tanzania just weeks before the start of an electoral cycle that will take citizens to the polls twice in the next twelve months.
The group of special rapporteurs chaired by Gabriella Citroni and which deals with issues such as extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances or other types of abuses has determined the existence of practices of “harassment and intimidation, arbitrary detentions, deprivation of liberty, forced disappearances, torture and unlawful killings and restrictions on freedom of expression” in the run-up to the local elections in November and the presidential elections next year.
Since the country’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, took office after the death of her predecessor, John Magufuli, in March 2021, humanitarian organizations declared their optimism regarding some measures of the new president to promote the development of Human Rights in the country, greatly weakened during the Magufuli era, especially during the violent repression against the opposition around the October 2020 general elections.
However, organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) regret that this opening has been inconsistent and cited as a case in point the arrest in the summer, in a completely arbitrary manner, in their opinion, of 375 members and supporters of the country’s main opposition party, the Party for Democracy and Progress (Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo, or Chadema), among them are former presidential candidate Tundu Lissu.
Without going any further this weekend, Chadema reported that armed men kidnapped and tortured the media manager of its women’s wing, Aisha Machano, who was finally found in a forest near the city of Kibiti, in the east of the country.
This incident comes a month after Ali Kibao, also a member of the Chadema secretariat, was kidnapped from a bus by gunmen early last month while traveling from Dar es Salaam to the coastal city of Tanga. Kibao was found shortly after murdered with his face burned by acid.
“We are alarmed,” the UN experts declare, “by the increase in incidents of kidnappings and the escalation of cases of human rights violations, including the murders of protesters and members of opposition parties.”
“There is concern that this pattern of repression aims to repress political dissidence and intimidate opposition to the Government and compromise democratic and national electoral processes,” they indicated.
In addition, they denounce that the Government of Tanzania has used the Non-Governmental Organizations Law to “arbitrarily cancel the registration and restrict the activities of civil society organizations.”
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