Tanzania

(MISA/IFEX) – The Tanzania police force has formed a six-person committee to investigate the beating of a journalist, a human rights activist and civilians by Ukonga prison guards in Dar es salaam on 10 September 2005. On 14 September, Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Adadi Rajabu told journalists in Dar es salaam that the committee […]

(MISA/IFEX) – On 10 September 2005, Mpoki Bukuku, chief photographer for the “Sunday Citizen” newspaper, and Christopher Kidanka, information officer for the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHC), were brutally beaten by a group of prison guards in Ukonga, in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam. The prison guards also brutalised innocent civilians and severely […]

(MISA/IFEX) – The government of Zanzibar has invited private electronic and print media to operate in the Isles in a bid to expand the coverage of economic, political and social issues. Minister of State Ali Juma Shamuhuna told the Zanzibar House of Representatives on 27 June 2005 that the government and private media could also […]

(MISA/IFEX) – The executive director of St. Mary’s Schools, Reverend Gertrude Lwakatare, has demanded an apology, retraction and compensation of one billion Tanzania shillings (approx. US$884,000) from M/s. Free Media Limited, publishers of the newspaper “Tanzania Daima”, and Tanzam Printers and Stationers for publishing an alleged defamatory story about her. According to a demand notice […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a CPJ press release: TANZANIA: ZANZIBAR GOVERNMENT BARS CRITICAL JOURNALIST FROM WORKING New York, June 10, 2005 – Authorities on the semi-autonomous Tanzanian island of Zanzibar have banned political columnist Jabir Idrissa from writing, saying he was working without permission. Idrissa told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he believes […]

(MISA/IFEX) – On 24 November 2004, the High Court of Tanzania, on the island of Zanzibar, delivered its ruling on a long awaited case launched by the “Dira” newspaper management team to challenge the act used to close the only independent weekly in the Isles. According to sources from Zanzibar, the paper will remain closed […]

(MISA/IFEX) – The Ministry of Home Affairs has officially granted journalist Jenerali Twaha Ulimwengu citizenship by naturalisation. According to a public notice issued by Director of Immigration Services K.W.B. Kihomano and published in the 11 March 2004 edition of the “Daily News”, Ulimwengu and 32 other persons were granted citizenship under Sections 9 (1) and […]

(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – The following is a 27 February 2004 ARTICLE 19 press release: ARTICLE 19 ANALYSIS OF TANZANIAN MEDIA POLICY ARTICLE 19 last week published an analysis of the Tanzanian government’s Information and Broadcasting Policy (1). The Policy contains a number of commendable commitments, including to bring Tanzanian law and practice into line with […]

(MISA/IFEX) – The Zanzibar government has threatened to take legal action against the editorial board of the banned weekly “Dira” if it attempts to publish the newspaper on the Internet. At a news conference on 3 December 2003, Zanzibar Information Services Director Enzi Talib said that to continue publishing “Dira” in any form would be […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 24 November 2003 CPJ press release: TANZANIA: Zanzibar government bans newspaper New York, November 24, 2003-The government of Zanzibar, a semiautonomous island off the coast of Tanzania, has ordered the indefinite suspension of the independent weekly Dira, according to local journalists and international press reports. Dira, the island’s most […]

(MISA/IFEX) – On 10 October 2003, the Kome Kichangani village authority expelled a group of local and foreign journalists from the Lake Victoria island of Kome, in Tanzania’s Mwanza region. The foreign journalists, who are from the United States and France, and a local reporter from the “East African” newspaper were undertaking research on fisheries […]

(MISA/IFEX) – On 25 June 2003, one day after his passport was confiscated, Ali Nabwa reached an agreement with the Immigration Department on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar. Nabwa, editor of the weekly independent newspaper “Dira”, agreed to surrender his Tanzanian citizenship and reapply for it as the Immigration Department had demanded in March. “We […]

(MISA/IFEX) – On 24 June 2003, Ali Nabwa’s passport was confiscated by the Immigration Department on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar. Nabwa is the editor of the weekly independent newspaper “Dira”. Speaking to MISA-Tanzania early in the morning of 25 June, Ali Saleh, the “Dira” sports and features editor who is also BBC’s Kiswahili correspondent […]

(MISA/IFEX) – On 16 September 2003, senior journalist Ali Nabwa was banned from working on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar. In a letter signed by Commissioner of Labour Ameir A. Ameir, the journalist was informed that he was not working in accordance with Section 26 (2) of the 1997 Labour Act. “I would like to […]

(MISA/IFEX) – On 8 April 2003, the chairperson of the Tanzania Football Association (FAT), Muhidin Ndolanga, assaulted Emmanuel Muga, a reporter from the weekly newspaper “The Express”, for allegedly photographing him illegally. Muga and 10 other reporters from “Mtanzania”, “Mwananchi”, “Daily News”, “The Express”, ITV and Radio Times FM went to Ndolanga’s office to seek […]

(MISA/IFEX) – Ali Nabwa, editor of the weekly newspaper “Dira”, published in the semi-autonomous state of Zanzibar, has vehemently denied government charges that he is not a citizen of Tanzania and that he has been living illegally in the country since 1993. At a 25 March 2003 press conference, Nabwa told journalists the Zanzibar government’s […]