Members of the press, activists commit to supporting civic space in Tanzania

Legal and Human Rights Centre has on February 14, 2018 convened a one day session to bring together media and human rights stakeholders to discuss and agree on how to address the shrinking civic space in the country.

The session gathered representatives from Media Council of Tanzania (MCT), TWAWEZA, Women Fund Tanzania, Tanzania Editors Forum (TEF), Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG), WiLDAF, TGNP, Tanganyika Law Society (TLS), Tanzania Centre for Democracy (TCD) and Policy Forum.

Participants of the meeting agreed on various issues to consider in a bid to address challenges facing public participation in Tanzania; among others participants suggested to concentrate their efforts in directly reaching out to the mass and empower people on significance of public engagement in issues of national interests, also the group agreed to double up efforts in advocating for amendment of restrictive and repressive laws and change of practices that hinders freedom of expression and assembly in the country . They further agreed on bringing more stakeholders on-board to strengthen the move to expand civic space in the country.

LHRC made use of the forum to introduce the project that aims at promoting civic space in the country through increasing more effective legal advocacy to guarantee freedom of assembly and freedom expression.