document
Upon taking office
in October 2015, President John Pombe Magufuli committed to stamp out
corruption in government and to be accountable to ordinary citizens, but
instead has restricted basic freedoms through repressive laws and
decrees.
Critical
journalists, politicians, human rights defenders, civil society
activists and senior United Nations officials have faced various
threats, intimidation and arbitrary detention by government authorities.
While the
government made some progress in expanding access to free secondary
education, it reinforced a discriminatory ban against pregnant students.
It further stalled on a legal reform process to increase the age of marriage to 18 for boys and girls.
Freedom of Expression
Authorities
arbitrarily arrested or otherwise threatened and harassed rights
activists and numerous prominent members of opposition parties who were
critical of the government or the president.
On December 13,
2016, police arrested Maxence Melo, a prominent human rights defender
and the owner of Jamii Forums, an independent whistleblower and
reporting website, and Mike William, a shareholder of Jamii media, which
hosts the site. The site hosted articles and debates exposing public
sector corruption and criticizing government actions.
Police searched the
offices of Jamii Forums and Melo's home without warrants. They
reportedly made copies of several documents. On December 16, 2016, the
Resident Magistrate Court of Dar es Salaam brought charges against Melo,
under Tanzania's controversial Cyber Crimes Law, including obstruction
of investigations for refusing to reveal the names of anonymous
contributors to Jamii Forums, and "managing a domain not registered in
Tanzania." Their trial began in August 2017 and continued at time of
writing.
In March, police in
Morogoro, about 200 kilometers west of Dar es Salaam, arrested Emmanuel
Elibariki, a popular Tanzanian rapper known as Ney wa Mitego, following
the release of his song that allegedly insulted the president. He was
released without charges.
In July, Dar es
Salaam's district commissioner ordered the arrest of Halima Mdee, a
member of parliament and head of Bawacha, the women's wing of the
opposition political party Chadema. Mdee had been critical of the
president's decision to ban pregnant girls from public schools. Police
charged her with insulting the president.
In August, police
arrested Ester Bulaya, a Chadema member of parliament for Bunda, for
conducting political activities outside her constituency. In separate
events, police also arrested Godbless Lema, a Chadema member of
parliament for Arusha Urban, and Salum Mwalimu, the party's deputy
secretary general in Zanzibar, accusing both politicians of sedition.
In September,
unidentified attackers shot and wounded Tundu Lissu, an outspoken member
of parliament critical of the president, in Dodoma. Lissu, Chadema's
chief whip, and president of the Tanganyika Law Society, was arrested
multiple times in 2017, including for "hate speech" and for "insulting
words that are likely to incite ethnic hatred."
In October, police
arrested Zitto Kabwe, leader of ACT Wazalendo, an opposition party, and
charged him with sedition, on grounds of breaching the Cyber Crime Act
and the Statistics Act of 2015, which criminalizes the publication of
statistics that are not endorsed by the National Bureau of Statistics.
On October 17,
police raided a workshop organized by the Initiative for Strategic
Litigation in Africa (ISLA), a Pan African organization advancing
women's and sexual rights. Dar es Salaam's head of police ordered
arbitrary arrests of 12 lawyers and activists, including two South
Africans, one Ugandan and nine Tanzanian nationals, on spurious charges
of "promoting homosexuality." Police released them on October 26, and
deported all foreign lawyers a day later. The case against nine
nationals remained open at time of writing.
On November 14,
Tanzanian government officials in Dar es Salaam prevented Human Rights
Watch from holding a news conference to launch a report on the abuse of
Tanzanian migrant domestic workers in Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
On June 25, Home
Affairs Minister Mwigulu Nchemba threatened to deregister organizations
that challenged the president's controversial June 22 statement banning
pregnant girls and teen mothers from attending school, and threats to
prosecute or deport anyone working to protect rights of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
In September,
Tanzania's National Assembly passed the Electronic and Postal
Communications (Online Content) Regulations, which aim to control
content used on social media, and impose onerous fines on individual
users and online providers.
Freedom of Media
The government shut
down or threatened privately owned radio stations and newspapers, ended
live transmissions of parliamentary debates, and ordered the
prosecution of at least 10 individuals over posts on social media. In
March, President Magufuli publicly warned media outlets to "be careful,
watch it."
In March, Dar es
Salaam's regional commissioner, Paul Makonda, who leads all executive
functions in the region, raided, with armed security, the offices of
Clouds FM Media Group, an independent broadcaster, and demanded the
airing of a defamatory video implicating a local pastor. The station
refused to broadcast the video.
In June,
authorities banned the independent newspaper Mawio for two years over
articles linking former presidents to alleged mismanagement of mining
deals. In September, the government banned Mwanahalisi, a weekly
newspaper, for two years, on claims of "unethical reporting" and
"endangering national security" for an article calling for prayers for
Tundu Lissu, an opposition party member. In October, authorities banned
Raia Mwema, a weekly newspaper, for 90 days for publishing an article
deemed critical of Magufuli's presidency.
Women's and Girls' Rights
In July 2016,
Tanzania's Constitutional Court declared child marriage unconstitutional
and ordered the government to set 18 as the minimum age of marriage
within one year of its ruling. The ruling settled a January 2016 case
filed by the Msichana Initiative, a girls' rights organization,
challenging Tanzania's discriminatory marriage law. In September,
Tanzania's attorney general, George Masaju, appealed the ruling.
In December 2016,
the government abolished tuition fees and indirect costs for primary and
lower secondary schools. The measure boosted secondary school
enrollment, but the poorest students still face obstacles, including
long distances to school and costs.
Many girls
regularly experience sexual harassment and exploitation by teachers in
schools. Schools lack adequate protection and confidential reporting
mechanisms.
Corporal punishment
of students is a widespread, lawful practice in Tanzania's secondary
schools, which violates international standards.
Girls also face
discrimination in schooling. School officials can automatically expel
pregnant girls and married girls from school. In May, the Ministry of
Education, Science and Technology presented re-entry guidelines to amend
the regulations and ensure that girls can return to school after
pregnancy. Tanzania's National Assembly did not endorse the guidelines.
Thousands of
Tanzanian women working as domestic workers in the Middle East face
labor rights violations and other abuses. Tanzania has no law to protect
migrant workers overseas, and weak safeguards facilitate abuse of
workers.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In mid-2016, the
government initiated an unprecedented crackdown on the rights of LGBT
people and their advocates. Senior government officials threatened to
arrest gays and their social media followers and to deregister
organizations "promoting" homosexuality.
They banned the
distribution of water-based lubricant, raiding and closing drop-in
centers and private clinics that provide services targeting key
populations, including men who have sex with men (MSM), sex workers, and
people who use drugs.
In December 2016,
Dar es Salaam police raided a workshop on HIV prevention among key
populations, and briefly detained eight participants. In Zanzibar,
police detained nine men for several days on suspicion of homosexual
conduct, and subjected them to forced anal examinations, a form of
torture.
In March, police
arrested a man, 19, suspected of homosexuality based on his Instagram
posts and subjected him to an anal exam. Several activists were arrested
for holding meetings. In July, President Magufuli stated that "even
cows disapprove of" homosexuality. In September, Zanzibar police
arrested 20 people at a workshop for parents of key populations and
accused them of homosexuality.
Several
organizations reported that the crackdown has resulted in HIV-positive
men failing to access their anti-retroviral treatment, while other MSM
have stopped accessing testing and preventive services.
Asylum Seekers and Refugees
In 2017, Tanzania
hosted over 240,000 refugees who entered the country from Burundi since
April 2015, following the political unrest in Burundi. In July,
President Magufuli ordered the suspension of registration and
naturalization of thousands of Burundian refugees, and publicly urged
them to voluntarily return to Burundi.
Key International Actors
Tanzania summarily
expelled three heads of UN agencies, including Awa Dabo, the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) country director. UNDP was
reportedly critical of the conduct of elections in Zanzibar.
In June, Tanzania
withdrew from the Open Government Partnership Initiative, a multilateral
initiative aimed at promoting government openness, and improving
service delivery, government responsiveness, combatting corruption and
building greater trust.
In August, three
African regional rights experts issued a joint letter of appeal to
Tanzania's president regarding his June 22 statement on pregnant girls.
In July, the UN
independent expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with
albinism, Ikponwosa Ero, visited Tanzania, welcoming government measures
to decrease attacks against persons with albinism, but finding that
people with albinism live in a "very fragile situation." She further
expressed concern on the use of schools as protection centers for
children with albinism.
In September, the
UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities heard the case
of a man with albinism who was attacked by two men, and had not received
government compensation for the abuses suffered. The committee
concluded that the government had failed to take all necessary measures
to prevent acts of violence and to efficiently investigate and punish
those acts. The committee further urged the government to promptly
prosecute attacks against persons with albinism and to criminalize using
body parts for witchcraft.
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