Tanzania Grants Bail to Opposition Leaders Accused of Sedition

DAR ES SALAM (Capital Markets in Africa) – A Tanzanian court granted seven opposition officials bail after most were detained for a week on charges of sedition, incitement to violence and unlawful assembly, their political party said.

Chadema Party Chairman Freeman Mbowe, Secretary-General Vincent Mashinji and four others had been remanded in custody since March 28. A seventh person, lawmaker Halima Mdee, was arrested April 1 on arrival at the airport in Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital, according to the local Citizen newspaper.

Charges against the seven include inciting rebellion during Feb. 16 rallies in the city, during which a 22-year-old student was killed by a stray bullet as the bus she was traveling in passed a confrontation between police and protesters. Chadema announced the members’ release on bail on its Twitter account Tuesday without saying if a trial date has been set.

Recent violence in Tanzania, including the killings of a local politician and an election campaigner, is jeopardizing its reputation as one of East Africa’s more stable countries. President John Magufuli has been accused of a crackdown on dissent, with several other politicians detained and accused of making inflammatory statements and five newspapers suspended since June for alleged errors.

A trend of rising repression under Magufuli in the gold- and natural gas-producing nation has “been clear from early on and there does not appear to be any let up,” according to Jared Jeffery, a political analyst at Paarl, South Africa-based NKC African Economics. “The clampdown threatens to create an equal and opposite reaction should citizens be mobilized against the authoritarian turn,” he said in an emailed note.