CUF march banned on Zanzibar

The opposition Civic United Front (CUF) has been banned by the Zanzibar police from holding a charity walk planned for 26 May to raise funds for the victims of political violence in January. Zanzibar Police Commissioner Khalid Iddi Nuizani said the proposed five-kilometre walk had been “legally banned” and would be halted, but the CUF planning director, Musa Kombo, insisted on Wednesday that the party would go ahead with it, AFP reported. “The police have no grounds to stop us. We will walk. Let them prepare enough bullets to shoot all of us,” AFP quoted Kombo as saying. “If they carry on with it, government power will be used to stop it,” Nuizani stated.

Over 30 people were reported killed in violent clashes in January, and over 2,000 refugees (mainly CUF supporters) fled to Kenya from the Zanzibari islands of Unguja and Pemba, after a heavy clampdown on CUF protests against what it considered fraudulent elections in October last year. The standoff has raised the political temperature in Unguja and Pemba, with police questioning opposition party leaders, including the CUF secretary-general and twice Zanzibar presidential candidate, Seif Shariff Hamad, AFP reported. Leaders of the opposition CUF, the National Reconstruction Alliance, the Tanzania Labour Party and the Popular National Party (PONA) were being investigated for allegedly making “seditious speeches” at public rallies in Bwejuu and Lumumba, the Tanzanian ‘Guardian’ newspaper reported on Thursday.

The repatriation of 667 refugees, mostly from Pemba, who fled January’s political violence, had been completed on 18 May without any significant difficulty, UNHCR stated on Tuesday.
The agency said it would monitor the treatment of those accused of offences during the January demonstrations to ensure they received due process, and planned to maintain a monitoring presence in Pemba and Unguja for the coming weeks.