Politics · East Africa
A year after Tanzania’s deadly election, rights groups say no official has faced prosecution
On the first anniversary of the 29 October 2025 vote, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say the killings of at least 518 people remain unpunished, the first inquiry report is still unpublished, and counterterrorism and treason laws are being turned on critics.
NAIROBI — One year after Tanzania’s general election of 29 October 2025, in which President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner with 98% of the vote and security forces put down protests with lethal force, no official has been criminally investigated or prosecuted for the killings, two international rights groups said on the eve of the anniversary.
“Not a single official has been criminally investigated, let alone prosecuted and punished for the excessive force that Tanzanian security forces used against protesters,” Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s regional director for East and Southern Africa, said in a statement on 28 October. Amnesty accused the authorities of “weaponizing counterterrorism laws to silence critics and instil fear”.
The numbers, and the missing report
A commission of inquiry chaired by former chief justice Mohamed Chande Othman documented at least 518 deaths across 11 regions and said the figure may not be conclusive, Human Rights Watch noted in May. The BBC reports that 197 of those deaths were shootings. The full report went to the president in April and has not been released. In August, Samia set up a second commission to identify those who planned, financed or carried out the violence and to look at the use of force and the whereabouts of missing people.
HRW senior researcher Oryem Nyeko wrote on 28 October that the first commission “failed to meaningfully scrutinize the role of security forces”, and that it is unclear whether the new body will lead to prosecutions. HRW says more than 2,000 people were arrested over the unrest, some of whom told the group they were beaten in custody. Former ambassador Humphrey Polepole, who disappeared weeks before the vote after criticising the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, is still missing.
A crackdown that kept going
Both groups say the repression did not end with the election. Amnesty says it interviewed 17 people in September who described arbitrary arrests, abductions and treatment that may amount to torture, much of it linked to banned marches called for 7 July. On 21 October, HRW reports, prosecutors charged John Pambalu, an official of the main opposition party Chadema, with treason, which carries the death penalty in Tanzania. Chadema leader Tundu Lissu, whose treason trial kept him off the ballot, briefly went on hunger strike this week over access to his lawyers, the BBC reported; prison authorities denied the claim.
Families interviewed by the BBC in Arusha and near Mwanza described burying relatives without bodies and paying for repeated surgery on gunshot wounds with no state help.
The government’s position
The government has repeatedly denied widespread abuses and says it is committed to human rights. Samia has said the election was free and fair and has blamed foreign actors for the unrest, describing it as an attempt to overthrow her government. The authorities did not respond to requests for comment from Amnesty or the BBC.
AB24’s East Africa desk reading: next week’s Lissu verdict and any decision to publish the Othman report will show whether Dodoma wants to close this chapter through accountability or by keeping it closed.
Sources: Amnesty International, 28 Oct 2026; Human Rights Watch, 28 Oct 2026; Human Rights Watch, 5 May 2026; BBC News, 29 Oct 2026. Casualty figures are from the government commission as reported by these sources; AB24 has not independently verified them.
— AB24 · Nairobi