In Tanzania, a member of the opposition Chadema party was found dead after being “kidnapped” by armed men, announced the party’s president, Freeman Mbowe, at a press conference on Sunday, September 8.
A member of the party’s national secretariat, Ali Mohamed Kibao, was forced off a bus at gunpoint on Friday as he travelled from Dar es Salaam to Tanga on the country’s northern coast, party officials said. His body was found in a Dar es Salaam neighbourhood on Saturday.
Mr Kibao’s arrest comes less than a month after Mr Mbowe, his deputy, Tundu Lissu, and other Chadema officials were briefly arrested in a sweeping raid ahead of a party youth rally.
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Other party officials are also said to have disappeared
“The autopsy was performed [en présence] Chadema’s lawyers and it is clear that Mr Kibao was severely beaten and acid sprayed in the face”Mr Mbowe said at his press conference on Sunday. “We cannot allow our people to continue to disappear or be killed like this”he said, before adding that “The lives of Chadema officials are currently in danger”Mr Mbowe said, without giving details, that other party officials had also disappeared.
Mr Kibao was a retired military intelligence officer who had worked with other opposition parties, as well as the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party, before joining Chadema, he added without giving specific dates. The police have not yet issued a statement on Mr Kibao’s death, but police spokesman David Misime said on Saturday that an investigation had been launched into the alleged abduction of the opposition leader.
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Human rights defenders and opponents had expressed concerns about the crackdown, which they said could lead to a return to the oppressive policies of former President John Magufuli, who died in 2021. In August, the NGO Amnesty International described the arrests of opponents as “deeply worrying sign” ahead of Tanzania’s 2025 presidential and parliamentary elections, the first since Mr Magufuli’s death. The recent arrests came despite pledges by the current president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, to lift restrictions on the opposition and the media.
