Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan Blocks International Youth Day Celebrations, Youths Arbitrarily Arrested Nationwide
11 August 2024 — International Youth Day is commemorated every year on 12 August, bringing youth issues to the international community’s attention and celebrating the potential of youth as partners in today’s global society.
Paradoxically the Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan who has been peddling her 4Rs mantra to lure international attention and to create a perception that unlike her predecessor, John Pombe Magufuli, she is a “reformist,” has blocked youths all over the country from traveling to Mbeya where the celebrations are scheduled to be held.
A bit more background leading up to this unfolding story is published on The Chanzo Initiative.
As I write this article, scores of opposition party youths have been arrested and the police are cracking down hard and relentlessly. The situation is out of control, please follow the unfolding events on Maria Sarungi Tsehai on X.
Hassan and her cohorts have muzzled the media, badly mismanaged the country, and its resources, and plunged the nation into unprecedented poverty with youths bearing the brunt of it with cataclysmic unemployment, lack of health services, and education, triggering a sense of hopelessness and the prospect of a bleak future.
And so the police have audaciously issued a statement banning the celebrations on the pretext that some of the opposition party leaders are instigating youths to use the global event as a launchpad to take to the streets, what with the ongoing Gen Z demonstrations in Kenya, Samia Suluhu Hassan fears this can happen in Tanzania.
My question to President Samia is, you’ve failed the nation, what else can you expect? Do you want to hang on to power by the barrel of a gun? The world is watching.
Development Partners Stop the Funding
We implore development partners and donors to stop funding the Samia Suluhu Hassan dictatorship, your funds are not even going to the people, most are being divided up between her clique of corrupt politicians. And that is not something your taxpayers will appreciate.
We ask that in the lead-up to the upcoming 2024–2025 elections, keep a close eye on unfolding events in Tanzania and do the right thing. Stop funding an inhumane regime.
Follow Diego Muller on X (formerly Twitter)
