Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2005 - Tanzania
- Document source:
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Date:
22 March 2006
Attack against Messrs. Kidanka and Bukuku89
On 10 September 2005, Mr. Christopher Kidanka, head of the information department of the Legal Human Rights Centre (LHRC), went to the Ukonga district, in Dar es Salaam, along with several journalists, to cover the forcible expulsion of many inhabitants of the neighbourhood by prison guards. Upon their arrival in the area, heavily armed prison guards surrounded them and ordered them to hand over their cameras.
The guards then violently assaulted and hit Mr. Mpoki Bukuku, a journalist for the British daily The Citizen, who had refused to abide by their order.
Mr. Kidanka, who tried to give him assistance, was also severely beaten, notably with rifle butts. The wardens then arrested several people, including Messrs. Kidanka and Bukuku, and locked them up for two hours in a car parked in the sun, without providing them any water or medical care, although their wounds were profusely bleeding.
Messrs. Kidanka and Bukuku lodged a complaint at the police station, and a commission – composed of four policemen and four prison guards – was established and tasked with carrying out a thorough investigation and publishing a report within two weeks. The Dar es Salaam Resident Magistrate Court heard the case on 21 September 2005; five prison senior officers and the four prison guard indicted for "assault" pleaded not guilty and were all released on bail. They were notwithstanding banned from leaving the city.
By the end of 2005, the enquiry commission had still not published its report, and none of the aggressors had been formally sanctioned.
[Refworld note: This report as posted on the FIDH website (www.fidh.org) was in pdf format with country chapters run together by region. Footnote numbers have been retained here, so do not necessarily begin at 1.]
89. See Observatory's statement to the 38th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Banjul, The Gambia, November 2005.
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