MEPs say they will not be allowed into Tanzania to press for answers after reported election-related killings and repression.
The European Parliament’s foreign affairs and human rights committees are often derided as toothless talking shops.. Yet the refusal of Tanzania’s state authorities to allow a delegation of MEPs to enter the country and hold its government to account for the killing of several thousand protestors following rigged elections last year rather undermines this argument.. After preventing the main opposition parties from standing candidates in the October general elections – Tundu Lissu, the chair of
the main opposition party Chadema, has been in jail as he faces treason charges – president Samia Suluhu Hassan was ‘re-elected’ with a Soviet-style 98 percent of the vote, on a turnout of more than 80 percent.. Election observers suggested that the turnout figure was plucked out of thin air.. Eyewitness accounts of polling day spoke of near deserted polling stations.. The election farce prompted pro-democracy protests which were brutally put down by the state
security services.. 3,000 civilians killed?. An 82-page submission to the International Criminal Court by a group of civil society organisations last November, stated that the Tanzanian authorities killed more than 3,000 civilians following polling day.. The same month, the parliament’s human rights committee was given a broad mandate last year to cover human rights abuses and election irregularities, as well as to audit EU-funded projects and meet with civil groups and legal bodies.. It was
originally intending to travel to the East African country in February, before being delayed until May to allow a domestic inquiry commission, whose members were selected by the government, to report its findings.. In the event, the inquiry concluded in late April that around 500 people had been killed, with commission chair Mohamed Chande Othman reporting that state security officers weren’t responsible for the deaths, instead blaming protestors and civil society groups.. His report has
not been made public.. Now MEPs are reporting that they won’t be allowed into Tanzania.
Tanzania election 2025, MEP delegation, EU human rights committee, International Criminal Court, Tundu Lissu, Samia Suluhu Hassan, election protests