Reports of riots, tear gas, and citizens clashing with police in Stone Town in Zanzibar began circulating yesterday evening via social media (May 26 2012), and continue today.
The events in brief:
Mussa Juma, imam and one of the leaders of UAMSHO (Kiswahili for ‘revival’), an Islamic association for separation of Zanzibar from mainland Tanzania, was arrested at his mosque on Saturday.
This led to protests demanding his release.
Presumably, what triggered the violence was when police waved a flag to stop the protesters from advancing. Protesters ignored the flag, police responded.
Earlier marches and prayers yesterday and the day before, for the advance to end unity government (between mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar (Pemba and Ungula), were reportedly peaceful, i.e. there was a peaceful prayer vigil on Friday at Maisara Fields, where Mussa Juma spoke. And there were peaceful talks with all leaders of the universities and leaders of UAMSHO to have dialogue on the issue of muuangano (Kiswahili for unity).
People were hence surprised when Mussa Juma was arrested at his mosque - around or - during prayer hours (which is technically considered highly unacceptable according to Islamic understanding, which I suppose it also would have been had someone arrested a Christian priest performing a Sunday service in a church).
I can so far only find one English media update here, which seems to be replicated on other media channels.
Besides from that, nothing so far on international main stream media, Global Voices, or the English Tanzanian media like IPP media or The Citizen, though this article from today's The Guardian does have some relevance in regard of understanding the broader context.
As usual Tanzanian media takes 2-3 days to pick up and publish, and up till now reporting is carried out by social media. Hence, the importance to underline responsibility when passing on information and commenting. I.e. it appears that photos from previous demonstrations (dating further back) are now being posted on social media.
The Zanzibar Twitter hash tag here sources updates, photos and opinions in abundance. Do approach critically. Passing on incorrect information does not promote peace or understanding of what is really going on. (In spite of the seriousness of events, I fell in immediate love with the concept of 'tear bombs' as put in this tweet: 'RT @Anditi3 Someone tell me what's going on in Zanzibar Zanzibar is full of chaos bro......tear bombs errrwherrr')
Obviously, a riot does not spark without a reason. Tear gas lead to crying tear bombs, so to speak.
Also, the root causes of what led to the demonstrations and the riots are also not standing on their own but may also be seen as part of a bigger Tanzanian context. For one, connecting to the present process of the constitution review for the United Republic of Tanzania (see link to article above), but possibly the riots may also feed into another pattern of the series of riots which have occurred on mainland Tanzania within the past year? What trigger riots may differ from Mwanza, Arusha, Arumeru to the University of Dar es Salaam, but root causes may resemble?
I do not know, but I think it is relevant to look at what is going on right now in Zanzibar within a broader context.
I have put this update together based on correspondence with Amanda Lichtenstein, who has been following the events from central Stone Town, and updates via Twitter. She emphasises that 'she hasn't left the house (yet), all tweets gathered from what she hears outside her window, and what she gathers on 1/news radio 2/news barazani 3/phone calls to friends/colleagues.
Keep yourself updated:
Amanda Lichtenstein: https://twitter.com/#!/@travelfarnow
Rachel Hamada: https://twitter.com/#!/rachelhamada
#zanzibar (note, tweets not only about the above mentioned topic): https://twitter.com/#!/search/zanzibar



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