Tanzania Frees Opposition Leaders After Banning Youth Rally
(Bloomberg) -- Tanzania released 520 opposition members who were detained in a bid to prevent them from holding a youth rally that the authorities said could have triggered unrest.
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Those freed late Monday without any charges include Chadema party Chairman Freeman Mbowe and his deputy Tundu Lissu, according to Commissioner of Police Awadh Haji. Authorities banned an International Youth Day gathering that had been planned for Monday in the central Mbeya region, alleging that Chadema’s leaders intended to incite violence.
“There are reports that some of our youth leaders are still in police custody in Mbeya,” Chadema spokesman John Mrema said. Mbowe and Lissu were released after posting bail and were escorted back to the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam, he said.
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The clampdown came in the wake of violent anti-government protests in neighboring Kenya, where at least 61 people died, and in Nigeria, where more than 20 people have been killed. President Samia Hassan, who faces local elections this year and a presidential vote in 2025, appears intent on avoiding upheaval.
Police would “thwart any plots” to replicate Kenya protests, Haji told reporters in Mbeya.
The incident appeared to be discriminatory as youth from the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party were allowed to hold similar gatherings on Aug. 10, according to the Legal and Human rights Centre.
While Hassan lifted a ban on rallies and some newspapers after succeeding the autocratic John Magufuli in 2021, opposition leaders have accused her of rowing back on democratic reforms.
“The mass arrests and arbitrary detention of figures from the Chadema party, as well as their supporters and journalists, is a deeply worrying sign in the run-up to” elections, Amnesty International said in a statement.
--With assistance from Mike Cohen.
(Updates with opposition party comment in third paragraph.)
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