Tensions ran high before the elections. And although the independent press offered relatively balanced political coverage, opposition leaders accused state media of pro-government bias. Members of the Tanzania Labor Party (TLP), for example, claimed that state television had falsely broadcast news of the cancellation of a TLP rally.
General elections on the mainland were relatively uneventful, as Mpaka won reelection by a landslide. On Zanzibar, however, the October 29 polls were violent, bloody, and bitterly contested. Several journalists were assaulted by soldiers while covering events on the mainland and Zanzibar. Others had their professional equipment confiscated or destroyed. And on November 1, BBC World Service correspondent Ally Saleh was arrested in Zanzibar after interviewing two women who claimed to have information about voting irregularities. He was released on bail the next day after being charged with kidnapping and indecent assault against the women.
Around that time, Zanzibar police were seeking three other journalists-Issa Yusuf of the newspaper Mtanzania, Jabir Idrisa of the newspaper Majira, and Salim Said Salim, Zanzibar correspondent for the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle-for unknown reasons, according to local news reports. All three went into hiding.
Amid government threats to ban media outlets that published "seditious" stories or cartoons that defamed the president, there was a flurry of new newspapers and magazines, which attracted investors from as far as Germany and India. Local independent media remain hemmed in by legal restrictions, however, including colonial-era decrees that allow for the banning of publications "in the public interest."
While the Constitution guarantees free speech, it does not explicitly grant citizens access to government information. Such access is further constrained by the National Security Act, the Official Secrets Act, and the Restricted Areas Act, all of which make it difficult for reporters to cover the government. In addition, the Newspaper Registration Act of 1976 requires all newspapers to register with the government, which also has the power to close newspapers. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party has used the Act to ban several newspapers and Web sites in recent years.
The majority of Zanzibaris are Muslims; as a result, the political rivalry between Zanzibar and the predominantly Christian mainland has taken on religious overtones. On August 4, the government banned a book called The Mwembechai Killings and the Future of Politics in Tanzania. The book detailed the killings of several hundred Zanzibari Muslims by security forces from the mainland.
FEBRUARY 25
Venance Mlay, Kasheshe
HARASSED
Police detained Mlay, editor of the Kiswahili-language daily Kasheshe,
for questioning in connection with a January 18 story on police brutality.
Mlay was arrested at his newspaper's offices for alleging that police
in Mbeya, a rural town in Tanzania's southwestern region, had shot and
killed an unarmed citizen after a manhunt.
Police in the capital, Dar-es-Salaam, questioned Mlay for five hours.
During the interrogation, Mlay was told that a group of officers from
Mbeya was due in Dar-es-Salaam on February 28 with a warrant to escort
him to the site of the alleged shooting. He was released that same day,
however.
On February 28, police again interrogated Mlay for 20 minutes in a Dar-es-Salam
station. In the presence of the Mbeya policemen, Mlay provided a written
statement along with photos that he had taken of the spot where the killing
allegedly took place. The Mbeya officers departed shortly thereafter,
promising to return if they needed more information from him.
In an earlier incident, on January 30, two policemen (one a native of
Mbeya) walked into the offices of The Guardian Ltd., publisher of Kasheshe,
and demanded to speak with Mlay. They asked him to disclose his sources
for the police brutality article, which he refused to do. They then ordered
him to appear at the local police station the next day, where he was briefly
detained.
According to Mlay, the Regional Criminal Officer (RCO) in charge of Mbeya
later personally apologized for all these incidents. No formal charges
were ever filed against him.
FEBRUARY 28
Athuman Hamisi, The Guardian
HARASSED
Police in the island state of Zanzibar detained Hamisi, a photographer
for the Dar-es-Salaam weekly The Guardian, for questioning in connection
with pictures he took at a meeting of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM)
party.
Hamisi told CPJ that he approached the vehicles of Zanzibar president
Salmin Amour and Tanzanian vice-president Omar Ali Juma as the two politicians
left the meeting hall during a lunch break. Police then claimed that Hamisi
was standing in a restricted area when he photographed the two men.
The photographer was taken into custody and interrogated for three hours.
He was later released without charges after the intervention of Assistant
Police Commissioner Juma Mtumwa.
OCTOBER 28
Khalfan Said, The Guardian
HARASSED
Said, a photographer with The Guardian newspaper, was detained
briefly while working on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar. Police
accused him of photographing military personnel. They confiscated two
rolls of film before releasing him.
NOVEMBER 1
Ally Saleh, BBC
HARASSED, LEGAL ACTION
Saleh, a reporter with the BBC World Service's Swahili program, was arrested
on the island of Zanzibar while covering Tanzania's second-ever multiparty
elections. Two days earlier, on October 29, he had interviewed two women
who claimed to have information about illegal voting in the previous weekend's
widely discredited poll.
Twelve hours after his arrest, Saleh was released on bail. The next day,
authorities charged him with kidnapping and indecent assault. His trial
was still pending at year's end.