Find kidnapped journalist or else…

Tanzania’s media elite gave the nation’s Intelligence authorities a two-day ultimatum yesterday to locate Salma Said, a reporter with Radio Deutsche Welle and the local Mwananchi Communications Limited who was allegedly kidnappedon her arrival on Friday at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam from her home in Zanzibar, or else they would contest her freedom in court. 

 

As whereabouts about her confinement were bleak as of yesterday, the Tanzania Editors Forum (TEF), Media Council of Tanzania (MCT),Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THDRC), Media Institute of Southern Africa-Tanzania (MISA-TAN) and Union of Tanzania Press Clubs demanded whereabouts of their colleague made public regardless of whether she is dead. 

 

“We want information about our fellow journalist be made public whether she;s dead or alive” they said in a joint statement in Dar es Salaam yesterday. 

 

MCT Executive Secretary Kajubi Mukajanga expressed his disappointment on Salma’s plight, saying she was “kidnapped” by unidentified people in a manner typical of spies’ as “in a few minutes after she had departed Zanzibar, information about her arrests by the police was already in circulation.” 

 

But “when we reported about her mysterious disappearance to security organs in both the Mainland and the Isles, they shrugged off, saying they were not aware of the developments,” he said. When DW managed to contact sources close to the victim, they were assured that Salma had been kidnapped by unknown people at a parking lot by the Airport, minutes after her arrival from Zanzibar. 

 

“We are completely in the dark as to what might have happened to her in this state of total secrecy, but it is also an incident that has brought fears among us journalists in this country since we are not sure of what’s awaiting us,” Mukajanga said. The National Coordinator of THRDC, Onesmo Olengurumo said they were communicating with her as she was taking a flight from Zanzibar, but her phone went off immediately as she arrived in Dar es Salaam. 

 

“The situation is not calm here, call me!” is a text message Ngurume received from Salma, but he could not reply because he failed to notice it in time. 

 

“Because we do not have legal authority to trace the number we decided to submit it to the police so that they could collaborate with mobile service providers in tracing where she might be,” Ngurumo said. 

 

He said the last communication with Salma was around 3:00am in the morning yesterday, when, according to her, she allowed to call only one person of her choice, giving hope that she was still alive. The last call to her husband was when she was at the airport in Zanzibar, telling him about the flight delay, according to the TET Chairman, Teophil Makunga.