Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) has accused the police of arresting its 191 ICT volunteers who were tallying election results in different parts of the city and linked them with human trafficking.
Speaking in Dar es Salaam at a press conference, the party presidential candidate, Edward Lowassa, expressed the party’s dismay calling upon the police to release them because the work they were doing was not illegal.
He said the ruling CCM also has a similar tallying centre at Mlimani city.
He said police in collaboration with the Intelligence personnel confiscated their computers and other equipment so as to disrupt their information.
According to him, the decision made by the police was against the basics of human rights.
He said police raided the centre and arrested the volunteers between October 25 and 26, this year in different tallying centres in the commercial capital.
He said after arresting them the police framed a case to link the suspects with human trafficking, adding that todate they are still detained at Oyster Bay police Station in the city.
Lowassa urged the police to set free all the 191 volunteers.
“Chadema has filed a letter to the Inspector General of Police, Ernest Mangu to work on the matter,” he elaborated.
However, he said, if police were fair enough they should also arrest the ICT volunteers working for the ruling party who are doing a similar tallying on behalf of their party.
“I call upon the United Nations to open its eyes and see how NEC suppresses innocent people to derail Chadema’s ability to run its presidential communication operations,” he said.
Lowassa however called upon NEC to announce presidential election results instead of issuing results from a few constituencies which favours the ruling party.
“The system currently used by NEC focuses on creating psychological preparedness for people to believe that the ruling party is leading,” Lowassa said.
For his part, the Chadema campaigns manager John Mrema said despite interruption by the police, the tallying was going on at the remaining centres.
He detailed that the aim of the centre is to liaise with party agents and officials in various polling and tallying stations throughout the country.
Meanwhile, he urged the National Electoral Commission to announce all the election results and not bits by bits.
Dar es Salaam Special Zone Police Commissioner Suleiman Kova confirmed that the police have arrested only 166 people in different hotels in Dar es Salaam in connection with the incident.
He said the people were interfering with the work of the National Electoral Commission.
“We are interrogating them to find out who they are working for and if we find out that they are working for NEC we are going to take legal action against them,” Kova said.
He added that some of those apprehended were foreigners.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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