Tanzania Arrests 520 People in Mass Opposition Crackdown

Africa|Tanzania Arrests 520 People in Mass Opposition Crackdown

The Tanzanian police said on Tuesday they had arrested more than 500 people, including top opposition leaders, as they planned to attend a youth rally, a stunning development in the East African nation where a pathbreaking female president had once promised to restore political freedoms.

Some 520 people were arrested across the country ahead of a Monday rally in the southwestern city of Mbeya, Awadh J. Haji, the police commissioner for operations and training, said in a statement. The police, he said, also seized 25 vehicles that had been transporting people going to the rally and officials from different regions in the country.

The rally was organized by the opposition Chadema party, which said it wanted to mark International Youth Day. But the police banned the gathering before it was underway, and accused party members of making statements that showed their intention to carry out anti-government protests similar to those that swept across neighboring Kenya in recent months.

“Their goal is not to celebrate International Youth Day, but to initiate and commit violence to cause disruption of peace in the country,” Mr. Haji said.

The latest crackdown does not augur well for Tanzania, whose president promised to oversee a more open nation after coming to power in 2021. The country’s first female leader, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, reversed some of the measures put in place by her populist predecessor, including by lifting a yearslong ban on political rallies, easing restrictions on the press and allowing pregnant girls to attend school.

Tanzania was one of three African nations that Vice President Kamala Harris visited last year in her efforts to bolster democratic governance and women’s empowerment in the continent.