This report is an extract from the Amnesty International Report 1997 and is copyright (c) Amnesty International Publications.
Prisoners of conscience were among scores of government opponents arrested and briefly detained on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. Many were held without charge or trial; others faced criminal charges and were denied bail. Scores of political prisoners were tortured and ill-treated on the islands. Prison conditions were poor and at least nine prisoners were reported to have died.
Political tension remained high on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba where political opponents accused the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, Party of the Revolution, led on the islands by Salmin Amour, of using intimidation and ballot rigging to win the October 1995 presidential and parliamentary elections. The authorities were responsible, both before and after local elections in March 1996, for further harassment, sometimes violent, of supporters of the main opposition party, the Civic United Front (cuf), which boycotted the elections on Zanzibar but won large majorities on Pemba. The cuf was repeatedly denied permits to hold meetings and rallies. After the elections hundreds of Pemba islanders working on Zanzibar, many of them government employees, were dismissed and their houses demolished. Others were expelled from the island. Newspapers which carried reports critical of the government were banned or threatened with closure.
cuf supporters were among scores of government opponents arrested during the year on Zanzibar and Pemba. Many were prisoners of conscience and were detained without charge or trial beyond the 48 hours allowed by Zanzibar law. In February, cuf member of parliament Mussa Haji Kombo was held without charge or trial for over two weeks after he held a public meeting for which the authorities had refused permission. Suleiman Seif Hamad, a member of the cuf's national executive, and Mtumwa Khatib were detained without charge or trial for two weeks in March after violent clashes between villagers and the police in Shengejuu, on Pemba.
Criminal charges such as sedition, vagrancy, and involvement in acts of violence, often accompanied by the denial of bail for periods of two weeks or more, were also used as a method of intimidating government critics and opponents. In one such case in January, the editor and publisher of the Swahili newspaper Majira were charged with sedition. The charges were dropped in February but the newspaper remained banned and at least one journalist working for Majira was prohibited from exercising his profession. In April, charges of stealing firearms, brought against cuf member of parliament Salim Yusuf Mohamed after he had spent nearly two weeks in detention following the Shengejuu clashes in March, were ruled unconstitutional by the Zanzibar High Court. The Criminal charges such as sedition, vagrancy, and involvement in acts of violence, often accompanied by the denial of bail for periods of two weeks or more, were also used as a method of intimidating government critics and opponents. In one such case in January, the editor and publisher of the Swahili newspaper Majira were charged with sedition. The charges were dropped in February but the newspaper remained banned and at least one journalist working for Majira was prohibited from exercising his profession. In April, charges of stealing firearms, brought against cuf member of parliament Salim Yusuf Mohamed after he had spent nearly two weeks in detention following the Shengejuu clashes in March, were ruled unconstitutional by the Zanzibar High Court. The authorities held him for a further 10 days.
Scores of suspected government opponents were tortured and ill-treated by police and Anti-Smuggling Unit (asu) personnel on Zanzibar and Pemba; on the mainland, criminal suspects were regularly beaten. On Zanzibar, beatings and other ill-treatment and torture were inflicted, including shaving prisoners' heads with broken glass, spraying prisoners with motor oil and forcing them to eat faeces. In March, members of the asu on Pemba forced Osman Hamad Osman to eat faeces and then beat him unconscious before dumping him in Mgogoni. In May, six men were beaten by police officers who suspected them of holding a political meeting in Pujini, on Pemba.