NAIROBI: Tanzanian authorities charged hundreds of people with treason over demonstrations around disputed polls last month, in a major escalation of political tension as the country reels from violence in which an unknown number of people were killed.
In addition to dozens criminally charged a day earlier in Dar es Salaam, dozens more face similar treason charges elsewhere in the East African country according to numerous charge sheets that became publicly available Saturday.
Police also issued arrest warrants for some of the top opposition officials who had not yet been jailed. They include Brenda Rupia, communications director for the Chadema opposition group, as well as John Mnyika, its secretary-general.
Chadema is Tanzania’s leading opposition party. Its leader, Tundu Lissu, has been jailed for several months and also faces treason charges after he urged electoral reforms ahead of voting on Oct. 29.
Authorities face questions over the death toll after security forces tried to quell riots and opposition protests before and after the vote. Chadema has claimed that more than 1,000 people were killed and that security forces were trying to hide the scale of the deaths by secretly disposing of the bodies. The Catholic Church in Tanzania has said that hundreds were likely killed.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who automatically took office as vice president in 2021 after the death of her predecessor, took more than 97 percent of the vote, according to an official tally. She faced 16 candidates from smaller parties after Lissu and Luhaga Mpina, of the ACT-Wazalendo party, were barred from running.
Rights groups described a climate of repression ahead of voting. There were enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings, according to Amnesty International and others. Tanzania’s government denies the allegations.
The African Union said this week that its observers had concluded the election “did not comply with AU principles, normative frameworks, and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections.”
AU observers reported ballot stuffing at several polling stations and cases where voters were issued multiple ballots. The environment surrounding the election was “not conducive to peaceful conduct and acceptance of electoral outcomes,” the statement said.
Single-party rule has been the norm in Tanzania since the advent of multi-party politics in 1992.
But government critics point out that previous leaders tolerated opposition while maintaining a firm grip on power, whereas Hassan is accused of leading with an authoritarian style that defies youth-led democracy movements elsewhere in the region.
A version of the governing Chama cha Mapinduzi party, which maintains ties with the Communist Party of China, has ruled Tanzania since its independence from Britain in 1961, a streak that Hassan extended with her victory.
Tanzania charges hundreds with treason and issues arrest warrants for more opposition figures
https://arab.news/rjzp4
Tanzania charges hundreds with treason and issues arrest warrants for more opposition figures
- In addition to dozens criminally charged a day earlier in Dar es Salaam, dozens more face similar treason charges elsewhere in the East African country according to numerous charge sheets that became publicly available
Zuckerberg says Meta no longer designs apps to maximize screentime
- Meta Platforms CEO faces questioned at a landmark trial over youth social media addiction
- It was the billionaire Facebook founder’s first time testifying in court on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users
LOS ANGELES: Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back in court on Wednesday against a lawyer’s suggestion that he had misled Congress about the design of its social media platforms, as a landmark trial over youth social media addiction continues.
Zuckerberg was questioned on his statements to Congress in 2024, at a hearing where he said the company did not give its teams the goal of maximizing time spent on its apps.
Mark Lanier, a lawyer for a woman who accuses Meta of harming her mental health when she was a child, showed jurors emails from 2014 and 2015 in which Zuckerberg laid out aims to increase time spent on the app by double-digit percentage points. Zuckerberg said that while Meta previously had goals related to the amount of time users spent on the app, it has since changed its approach.
“If you are trying to say my testimony was not accurate, I strongly disagree with that,” Zuckerberg said.
The appearance was the billionaire Facebook founder’s first time testifying in court on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users.
While Zuckerberg has previously testified on the subject before Congress, the stakes are higher at the jury trial in Los Angeles, California. Meta may have to pay damages if it loses the case, and the verdict could erode Big Tech’s longstanding legal defense against claims of user harm.
The lawsuit and others like it are part of a global backlash against social media platforms over children’s mental health.
Australia has prohibited access to social media platforms for users under age 16, and other countries including Spain are considering similar curbs. In the US, Florida has prohibited companies from allowing users under age 14. Tech industry trade groups are challenging the law in court.
The case involves a California woman who started using Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube as a child. She alleges the companies sought to profit by hooking kids on their services despite knowing social media could harm their mental health. She alleges the apps fueled her depression and suicidal thoughts and is seeking to hold the companies liable.
Meta and Google have denied the allegations, and pointed to their work to add features that keep users safe. Meta has often pointed to a National Academies of Sciences finding that research does not show social media changes kids’ mental health.
The lawsuit serves as a test case for similar claims in a larger group of cases against Meta, Alphabet’s Google, Snap and TikTok. Families, school districts and states have filed thousands of lawsuits in the US accusing the companies of fueling a youth mental health crisis. Over the years, investigative reporting has unearthed internal Meta documents showing the company was aware of potential harm.
Meta researchers found that teens who report that Instagram regularly made them feel bad about their bodies saw significantly more “eating disorder adjacent content” than those who did not, Reuters reported in October.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, testified last week that he was unaware of a recent Meta study showing no link between parental supervision and teens’ attentiveness to their own social media use. Teens with difficult life circumstances more often said they used Instagram habitually or unintentionally, according to the document shown at trial.
Meta’s lawyer told jurors at the trial that the woman’s health records show her issues stem from a troubled childhood, and that social media was a creative outlet for her.
