Police arrested senior leaders of Tanzania’s main opposition party CHADEMA and hundreds of its supporters ahead of a meeting in the southwest of the country, a party spokesperson said on Monday.<\/p>\n
Tundu Lissu, CHADEMA’s vice chairman, and the party’s Secretary General John Mnyika were among those arrested on Sunday evening, party spokesperson John Mrema told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Lissu, a former presidential candidate, has harboured ambitions of contesting in next year’s presidential election.<\/p>\n
Since coming to power in March 2021 following the death of her predecessor, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has\u00a0lifted a ban on political rallies\u00a0and relaxed restrictions on media.<\/p>\n
However, she has faced criticism from opposition parties and rights groups for\u00a0arrests last year\u00a0of those planning protests against a port management deal.<\/p>\n
The latest arrests came hours after police banned a conference planned by CHADEMA’s youth wing BAVICHA, saying the event was likely to breach the peace.<\/p>\n
Police said the party’s youth leaders planned to influence young people across the country to meet and demonstrate in Mbeya, a city in southwest Tanzania, which the party spokesperson denied.<\/p>\n
Mrema said the conference was to celebrate International Youth Day, where top party officials, including Chairman Freeman Mbowe, were set to address the youth.<\/p>\n
“There are more than 400 people who have been arrested by police,” the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n
Police spokesperson David Misime did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.<\/p>\n
CHADEMA Chairman Mbowe said the party condemned the arrest and was monitoring the situation.<\/p>\n
“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of all our leaders, members and loved ones who were arrested in various parts of the country,” he said on social media platform X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police arrested senior leaders of Tanzania’s main opposition party CHADEMA and hundreds of its supporters ahead of a meeting in the southwest of the country, a party spokesperson said on Monday. Tundu Lissu, CHADEMA’s vice chairman, and the party’s Secretary General John Mnyika were among those arrested on Sunday evening, party spokesperson John Mrema told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33],"tags":[2943,504,2942,505,131,1405],"class_list":["post-12876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-bavicha","tag-chadema","tag-john-mnyika","tag-samia-suluhu-hassan","tag-tanzania","tag-tundu-lissu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}