(MISA/IFEX) – On 30 July 1998, a journalist with the private Dar es Salaam Television (DTV), Betty Masanja, was interrogated by police and forced to provide a written statement to be a state witness in order to associate the vice-chairman of the Zanzibar-based Civic United Front (CUF) party, Seif Shariff Hamad, with charges of treason […]
(MISA/IFEX) – On 30 July 1998, a journalist with the private Dar es Salaam
Television (DTV), Betty Masanja, was interrogated by police and forced to
provide a written statement to be a state witness in order to associate the
vice-chairman of the Zanzibar-based Civic United Front (CUF) party, Seif
Shariff Hamad, with charges of treason facing some 18 leading activists of
the CUF.
Police inspectors detained Masanja at the head office of the Ministry of
Home Affairs in Dar es Salaam and interrogated her for over two hours.
Masanja was forced to give a written statement about a television interview
she did with Hamad and which was aired on a talk show in 1995. The show was
subsequently banned immediately after the presidential
elections of that year.
Masanja told the Tanzanian chapter of MISA, “I disagreed about writing a
statement, but they took me to another office of their boss, by the name of
Robert Manumba, and continued to threaten me that if I didn’t write a
statement I will be looking for trouble.” She added that she did not want to
be associated with treason charges facing CUF activists.
