Four government critics were forcibly disappeared and one was killed. The police prevented opposition members from holding meetings and other political gatherings, subjecting them to mass arrest, arbitrary detention and unlawful force. Journalists and others were denied their right to freedom of expression. The government continued to violate the rights of the Maasai Indigenous People, including by subjecting them to forced eviction. A court ruling suspended plans that would have denied the Maasai rights to political participation and representation. The authorities failed to protect LGBTI people from violence. The launch of the second National Plan of Action to End Violence against Women and Children provided an opportunity to enhance the protection of women and girls. The East African Crude Oil Pipeline project undermined Tanzania’s commitments to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Background
On 24 January the main opposition Party for Democracy and Progress (Chadema) held a major protest in the capital, Dar es Salaam; the first in almost eight years. It was attended by hundreds of supporters and members calling for constitutional and electoral reforms. In 2023, President Samia Suluhu Hassan had lifted a blanket ban on political rallies, imposed by her predecessor in 2016.
The Independent National Electoral Commission Act No 2 of 2024 was one of four election-related bills signed into law by the president on 2 April. This was in response to opposition leaders’ calls for improvements in the effectiveness and transparency of electoral processes and other electoral reforms.
Enforced disappearances
The fate of four government critics subjected to enforced disappearance by suspected state agents remained unknown. Dioniz Kipanya, a Chadema party official, disappeared on 26 July when he left home following a telephone conversation with an unidentified person. Deusdedith Soka and Jacob Godwin Mlay, both Chadema youth activists, and Frank Mbise, a motorcycle taxi driver, were abducted by a group of men suspected to be police officers on 18 August.
Unlawful killings
The body of Ali Mohamed Kibao, a senior Chadema member, was found on 8 September. Suspected security agents had abducted him from a bus on 6 September while he was travelling home to Tanga from Dar es Salaam. According to a post-mortem his body had been soaked in acid and bore signs of a beating.
Freedom of peaceful assembly
On 11 August, police arrested Chadema party members, including Tundu Lissu, vice chairperson and former presidential candidate, John Mnyika, secretary general, Joseph Mbilinyi, a central committee member, more than 500 youth supporters, and five journalists. They were arrested at, or on their way to, a meeting in Chadema’s Nyasa office in Mbeya, in south-western Tanzania, ahead of International Youth Day on 12 August. They were accused of violating a ban on a youth conference and planning a violent demonstration. The next day, police arrested party leaders Freeman Mbowe and John Pambalu after they went to Mbeya in response to the arrests. All party leaders were released on bail on 13 August; the others were bailed in the following days.
On 13 September the police announced a ban on all Chadema protests and on 23 September arrested Freeman Mbowe, Tundu Lissu and six other party officials in Dar es Salaam before planned protests against killings and abductions of government critics. They were released on bail the same day. Three journalists from Mwananchi Communications Ltd and East Africa TV were arrested while covering protests and released unconditionally the same day.
Freedom of expression
On 28 September, the National Arts Council (Basata), an official body, interrogated musician Emmanuel Elibariki (also known as Nay Wa Mitego). It accused him of releasing a record entitled “Nitasema” (“I shall speak”) without a Basata licence; inciting violence by singing about state abductions; misleading the public by claiming that the president had failed in her development agenda; and defaming other countries by claiming in the song that there is no peace in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On 3 October the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) suspended for 30 days the digital platforms of Mwananchi, including The Citizen. TRCA claimed that the platforms had published material that disrupted “national unity and social peace” in connection with a video that expressed relatives’ concerns about their missing or murdered relatives.
On 6 October the deputy minister of minerals warned international NGOs against “sneaking” into Tanzania to conduct human rights interviews. He was responding to a statement by OHCHR, the UN human rights office, concerning a Human Rights Watch report stating that six people were killed by police in clashes at North Mara mine between February and June. The remark was made during a meeting with the president, also chief executive, of the mining company Barrick.
On 9 October, TCRA filed a lawsuit against Jambo Online TV claiming it violated communications regulations by airing allegations from Tundu Lissu and journalist Erick Kabendera that government officials, aided by mobile telephone operator Tigo Tanzania, were involved in a plot to assassinate Tundu Lissu in 2017.
Forced evictions
Eight members of the Indigenous Maasai People continued their legal battle against their forced eviction in June 2022 from 1,500km2 (of a total 4,000km2) of land in Ngorongoro district’s Loliondo division. Their case was scheduled before the High Court in October, having been postponed in August when the government lawyer failed to attend the hearing. They were challenging Government Notice No 604 of 2022, issued by the president. The notice declared their village to be in the Pololeti Game Controlled Area and was a measure used to justify the forced evictions.
Meanwhile, in Ngorongoro division in the same district, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) continued to violate a 2023 High Court order that directed them to allow the Maasai access to a disputed area in Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) pending final determination. Among other things, the authorities impounded livestock belonging to the Maasai that wandered into the conservation area. The Maasai accused the NCAA of using laws inapplicable to the area and seizing livestock to pressure them to relocate from the NCA. The seizure by the authorities of the Maasai’s livestock denied them their rights to fully participate in economic, social, political and cultural life.
In May, Ngotieti Kokoyo from Endulen, a village in Ngorongoro district, filed a case at the High Court challenging the illegal seizure of his livestock. The NCAA released his impounded livestock after he paid them a fine. The livestock was seized for crossing the Eyasi/Endamaga Gate, despite NCA laws and the 2023 High Court ruling (see above) that allow the animals to graze in the NCA.
In July the government seized more than 130 animals from a Maasai family in Endulen.
Discrimination
Indigenous Peoples
In September a government decision to dissolve several administrative areas, including in Ngorongoro district, was reversed after the High Court ruled to suspend the plans. If implemented, it would have barred more than 100,000 Maasais from political participation and representation during elections in November 2024 and October 2025.
LGBTI people
Violence, discrimination and crackdowns against LGBTI people continued. On 7 June, a transgender woman and activist, Mauzinde (also known as Hussein Abdala) was found abandoned in a forest in Zanzibar. Her ears had been severed and she had been beaten. The OHCHR said she was “tortured and sexually assaulted by 12 men” and called for “bold action to combat discrimination against #LGBTIQ+ people and other minorities”.
LGBTI websites were frequently blocked, a measure that correlated with rising levels of discrimination and crackdowns against LGBTI people, according to the Open Observatory of Network Interference.
Persons with albinism
On 24 April, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities raised concerns over the government’s “unwillingness to follow up on three petitions filed to the Committee concerning the mutilation of people with albinism and the lack of accountability for such abuses”.
Women and girls
In May, Tanzania launched its second National Plan of Action to End Violence against Women and Children (2024/2025-2028/2029) which provided the government with an opportunity to recommit itself to the protection of women and children.
Right to a healthy environment
An appeal filed by four East African NGOs in relation to the construction of the 1,443km-long underground fossil fuel pipeline project by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) Ltd went to hearing in February at the East African Court of Justice (EACJ). It was prompted by an earlier EACJ decision that the NGOs’ case was inadmissible.
EACOP Ltd, funded by French carbon major Total Energies, entered a land lease agreement with the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation following the completion of a process of land acquisition and compensation for affected local communities. The pipeline, which risks causing serious environmental degradation, will transport oil from Uganda to Tanga Port in Tanzania where it will be sold onwards to international markets (see Uganda entry). Its construction led to displacements. The pipeline project is contrary to Tanzania’s NDC commitments and its Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy, currently in development.
