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Civil Society Workers Run Afoul of Tanzania Security Officials in Sign of
Increasing Clampdown

Anita Powell

   JOHANNESBURG - African civil society campaigners attending a conference
   in Tanzania were questioned and warned over the weekend, in what human
   rights activists say is part of a continuing clampdown on free speech
   in the East African nation.

   Details are still emerging over what exactly happened to at least 40
   civil society workers who ran afoul of security officials at this
   year's summit of the Southern African Development Community in Dar es
   Salaam.

   But rights experts said Monday that the episode is another worrying
   sign of heightened paranoia and harassment from the government.

   Catherine Eden, a lawyer for the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders
   Coalition, says the incident stemmed from a misunderstanding. South
   African delegates to the 15-nation conference, she said, wanted to hold
   a short commemoration of the seventh anniversary of South Africa's
   deadly Marikana mine massacre on Aug. 16. Thirty-four striking miners
   were killed by police in the deadliest security incident since the end
   of apartheid in 1994.

   So delegates at a side event sang the South African anthem, held a
   moment of silence and availed on their government to better protect its
   people. But something they wrote on a piece of paper convinced security
   police the delegates had bigger plans.

   "They wrote some messages on the flip charts, of which the little
   content that was captured in the flip charts read, 'Stop killing our
   people,'" she said. "... So I think there was a national security
   person in that meeting and he saw those messages and so he interpreted
   that as a plan to demonstrate. But if you look closely, you can't see
   any relationship as to why they would want to demonstrate for the
   Marikana shootings in Tanzania."

   It's not clear if anyone was actually arrested. Other rights groups say
   that some foreign campaigners were arrested, but not interrogated.

   'Afraid, insecure'

   Eden says she was summoned by authorities as she went to the police
   station Friday night to meet with a local coordinator and then was let
   go with a warning. Police later went to delegates' hotel rooms looking
   for materials that they thought were a security threat. They found
   nothing, she said.

   Janet Zhou, director of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development,
   was one of the campaigners questioned by security forces at her hotel.

   "I was afraid, I was insecure, I was traumatized to say the least," she
   told VOA, after returning home to Harare. "Because seven security
   details coming over after midnight and questioning me about a
   demonstration and placards that I wasn't going to be able to give them,
   was something else. I didn't understand it. It left me really
   terrified."

   She said police then told her -- and her 40-person delegation -- to
   remain in their hotel all day Saturday. She asked them if they were
   under arrest, to which they did not reply.

   'Perfectly valid'

   Oryem Nyeko, a Kampala-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, noted
   that Tanzanian police didn't do anything technically illegal. But, he
   said, that doesn't make it right, either.

   "I think it's a perfectly valid thing for police to do," he said.
   "However, the challenge with that is that it speaks to a wider problem
   in Tanzania as far as a closing civic space and the opportunities that
   people in civic society have to freely express themselves. This is part
   of a wider pattern of civic repression in the country."

   International groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists have
   also warned of increased repression. Ahead of the SADC summit, the
   watchdog group noted its concerns about a "deeply troubling erosion of
   press freedom," and of "attacks on individual journalists, media
   suspensions, internet shutdowns, and restrictive legislation."

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