Photo credit: Reuters
Tanzania’s government has warned citizens that protests planned for Tuesday would be unlawful and amounted to an attempted coup.
Reuters reports that security forces have been deployed heavily in major cities.
Activists and the opposition have called for anti-government protests on Tuesday, the anniversary of mainland Tanzania’s independence from Britain, following the violent suppression of demonstrations during elections in October in which the United Nations believes hundreds were killed.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urged authorities to respect fundamental human rights ahead of the planned demonstrations, calling for the lifting of a nationwide ban on protests and warning against the use of excessive force.
The October protests were fuelled by the exclusion of leading opposition candidates from a presidential election in which incumbent Samia Sululu Hassan was declared the winner with nearly 98% of the vote
The government, while acknowledging that people were killed, failed to provide its own death toll.
The police said on Friday that any demonstration would be illegal since authorities had not received any formal notification from organizers.
