By RFIPosted on 10-28-2019Modified on 28-10-2019 at 19:36

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International jointly denounce the Tanzanian regime's drift. The two organizations presented Monday, October 28 two reports denouncing the abuse of power to muzzle the freedoms of expression, opinion or assembly.

President John Magufuli is described as being at the center of this repressive system. In fact, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch jointly denounce a toughening of the Tanzanian president. Since his election in 2015 , his regime has increasingly targeted journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders and opponents.

Joined by RFI, Roland Ebole, a researcher at Amnesty, describes a series of tools aimed at restricting freedoms. " The laws impose heavy fines and it forces people to do everything possible to avoid committing an offense. There are very expensive licenses to obtain like the one for example to create a blog. This prevents people from using their freedom of expression. The police are watching you. There are raids in the media, bans to broadcast. There are physical attacks. The power either remains silent or speaks of black sheep in the security forces. If that were the case, we would have all types of victims. This is a deliberate policy and it is the critics of the regime that are targeted. This is a very clear trend , "he explains.

Secret services, immigration, police, communication authority and other institutions are used to enforce the crackdown. As a result, the climate has increased significantly.

" A climate of fear has settled. People do not talk freely anymore. Civil society is afraid to denounce certain things and to see the government attacking it. The media no longer covers some important issues of the country. We have a self-censorship that adds to the censorship already applied by the authorities, "said Oryem Nyeko, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

NGOs ask the government to review its repressive laws, to stop harassing those who criticize it. Without much hope of seeing the regime change, they hope for stronger international pressure.

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