Abductions, gagging totally unacceptable
A Mwananchi Communications Limited journalist, Mr Kelvin Matandiko, assists his colleague, Ms Salma Said, to descend down the stairs of a building in Dar es Salaam at the weekend. It was after a briefing session on an ordeal at the hands of people who were angered by her coverage of the recent controversial election rerun in Zanzibar. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
Local and foreign mainstream and social media were awash with reports on her mysterious disappearance shortly after she landed at Julius Kambarage Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam.
Mwanza. Tanzanians woke up to awful news on the abduction of Salma Said, a journalist with Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL) based in Zanzibar, barely two days to the Sunday election rerun in the Isles.
Local and foreign mainstream and social media were awash with reports on her mysterious disappearance shortly after she landed at Julius Kambarage Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam.
Her husband Ali Salim Khamis, a Member of Parliament for Mwanakwerekwe, reportedly said Salma was on her way to the city for medical checkup only to send him a short text message informing him of operatives abducting her.
She landed at the airport safely and was about to board a taxi to a hospital in the city when the security operatives arrested and whisked her away to a secret place on grounds that they do not like her reportage of the election. However, Salma checked in at a hospital in Dar es Salaam immediately after she was released, Dar es Salaam Special Zone Commander Simon Sirro confirmed, as he promised to divulge details after thoroughly interrogating her.
Her abduction is but only one of a series of terrorist actions a group of masked men dubbed zombies have been inflicting on innocent Zanzibaris with impunity since Zanzibar Electoral Commissioner (ZEC) chairman Jecha Salum Jecha annulled the October 25 General Election results allegedly for irregularities and Civic United Front boycotted it. Salma was among journalists and activists who have since been exposing human rights violation the group committed, as they advocated for tolerance of opposite views.
In fact, a society with all its members thinking in the same way is dead, if it at all exists on earth. A society becomes lively only when it consists of different opinions and agrees on a viewpoint by consensus.
The offensive, which targets proponents of the rule of law, freedom of speech, civil and human rights in Zanzibar, is a reminiscence of the colonial regime’s intimidating freedom fighters.
Even during early days of the postcolonial regimes, some African leaders pregnant with the hangover of colonial dictatorship suppressed democracy.
Over half a century after independence, leaders are not expected to take Zanzibar and Tanzania at large back to the colonial era by kidnapping and tormenting citizens with opposite views.
Leaders and ordinary members of the society, who cannot get used to agree to disagree without fighting, should be condemned and rebuked, for the law of the land, which cherishes separation of powers, to prevail. God bless Tanzania!
