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The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners arrested by Tanzanian police in recent days.

In the past 24 hours, opposition party CHADEMA's Chairman, Freeman Mbowe, Vice Chairman and former Presidential candidate, Tundu Lissu, youth wing leader, John Pambalu, and scores of party members have been arrested.

These arrests come mere hours after police banned CHADEMA’s Youth Day celebration rally, scheduled to take place at the Ruanda Nzovwe grounds, stating that the event was ‘intended to incite public demonstrations’.

The arrests took place despite President Samia Hassan having lifted a ban on opposition party gatherings in January 2023.

The United Republic of Tanzania is a founding Member State of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), having been one of the nine countries that formed the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) in Lusaka, Zambia, in April 1980.

The SADC’s founding treaty mandates all member states to act in accordance with the principles of “human rights, democracy and the rule of law.”

This blatant suppression of democratic freedoms, occurring in the same week that Heads of State and Government will convene at the 44th Ordinary SADC Summit, underscores the political impunity that persists unabated in many parts of the region.

South Africa can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the flagrant suppression of human rights and democratic freedoms in our back yard.

Section 11.9 of the Government of National Unity’s Statement of Intent states clearly that South Africa’s foreign policy will now be based on "human rights, constitutionalism, the national interest, solidarity, peaceful resolution of conflicts, to achieve the African Agenda 2063, South-South, North-South and African cooperation, multilateralism and a just, peaceful and equitable world".

The DA urgently calls on Minister Ronald Lamola, as a Minister with the GNU, to publicly condemn these arbitrary political arrests, and to use every available avenue at the upcoming SADC Summit to advance the restoration of democratic freedoms in Tanzania, and the wider region.

Issued by Emma Louise Powell MP - DA Spokesperson on International Relations and Cooperation