Extra-judicial killings in Tanzania: "Police have killed over 200 in eight years"

BY GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY CORRESPONDENT

As Tanzanians still grapple with the cold-blood murder of a journalist in Iringa region, data released by the Legal and Human Rights Centre ( LHRC) shows police killed some 209 people between 2005 and early this month an average of 30 extra-judicial killings a year.

The journalist’s killing may be latest in a series of such brutalities yet hardly unique: a United Nations report released in October last year ranks Tanzania at the 10th slot among countries with the worst police killings around the world.

According to the UN document, Pakistan tops the list followed by Philippines and Mexico. Egypt was placed fourth while Iran became fifth.

The sixth position was taken by North Korea while Russia placed in the seventh slot. Brazil was number eight followed by Bahrain.

Daudi Mwangosi, a Channel Ten TV station correspondent, was brutally murdered by anti-riot police last Sunday at Nyololo village in Iringa region, where police ostensibly moved in to disperse the opposition Chadema party’s members and fans who had gathered to inaugurate a branch office.

It is believed that the police killed the journalist with an explosive device that ripped his abdomen apart, and reduced the victim’s entire body to a mangled heap. Three probe teams are currently investigating this gruesome murder.

Harold Sunguisia, the LHRC advocacy and legal reforms director, released the data on Friday evening in a special programme aired by an Independent Television ( ITV).

However, the number of those killed in Tanzania did not include those who died in 1998 at Mwembechai area in Dar es Salaam when anti-riot police engaged with Muslims, or those who died in 2001 in Zanzibar when police moved to thwart demonstrations staged by CUF followers protesting against the 2000 presidential election results.

However, statistics show that altogether 31 CUF members and supporters died during the chaos in Zanzibar. But the LHRC figures differ: Sungusia says his data shows that in 2005 police killed 36 people while 37 people died in 2006.

Furthermore, police are said to have killed 10 people in 2009, and another 52 people at the hands of the police killed the year next.

Last year, police killed 26 people. By September this year, police had killed at least 22 people details which are often ignored by the police.

Last Sunday’s murder has since sparked national and international condemnation, prompting formation of three probe teams one by police themselves, the government and the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) all tasked to investigate the same incident.

Though the UN report placed Tanzania’s Police Force in the 10th slot, the same report acknowledges that the government is determined to review laws governing press freedom.

“Tanzania is one of the countries where freedom of the press is highly respected. This is evidenced by a large number of privately owned print and electronic media houses,” the report reads in part.

With regard to receiving complaints and treatment by police, the report says the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance ( CHRAGG) continues to play the role of an oversight body with the mandate to raise to receive and investigate complaints on human rights violations.

The report provides further that a department within the Ministry of Home Affairs has been established to deal with complaints from the public against the police. However, the efficiency of the department is not clearly accounted.

Until the report was released late last year, the country was yet to ratify the UN Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY (09/09/2012): http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=45610