Nairobi (AFP)
A Tanzanian journalist was arrested Thursday in Dar es Salaam by police who accused him of spreading false news during a TV show that reported police brutality against young people in police custody. we learned Friday from his lawyer.
Joseph Gandye, who works for Watetezi TV, "is accused of publishing false information," said lawyer Jones Sendodo, who assisted the journalist Thursday during his interrogation in Dar es Salaam.
According to the Tanzanian Coalition of Human Rights Defenders (THRDC), which created Watetezi TV, a program presented by Joseph Gandye on August 9 accused police officers from the Iringa police station in southern Tanzania of having forced six young people in custody to "sodomize each other".
The reporter was transferred Friday from Dar es Salaam to Iringa. "They have just transferred him to Iringa and there is another lawyer who will assist him," Me Sendodo added.
Mr. Gandye's arrest comes less than a month after Erick Kabendera, a well-known freelance journalist working for national and foreign media.
The police accused Mr. Kabendera of fraudulently acquiring Tanzanian citizenship, then publishing "false and seditious" information, before successively giving up these charges and ultimately charging him with economic crimes (organized crime, money laundering money and tax evasion).
These charges exclude the possibility of bail, according to Tanzanian law, and the journalist is still detained.
The circumstances of this arrest and the vagueness of the accusations led national and international NGOs to denounce a fierce attack against the journalist.
The British and American embassies in Tanzania also reacted by saying they were "deeply worried about the deterioration of judicial procedures in Tanzania, characterized by the use of long preventive detention and the modification of charges".
Since the election of President John Magufuli in late 2015, meetings of opposition parties have been banned, opposition leaders arrested and prosecuted, closed newspapers and journalists and artists harassed or threatened with death after criticizing government.
Tanzania ranked 75th worldwide in Reporters Without Borders press freedom rankings in 2015. In 2019, it is now 118th.
© 2019 AFP