Mdude Nyagali labelled the president a ‘hypocrite’ in a Twitter post just hours before his disappearance.
Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chadema, reported on Sunday that Nyagali was kidnapped by four gunmen who dragged him into one of two waiting cars as he left work in Mbozi in the Songwe region near the Zambian border on Saturday night, the East African reported.
The incident has been reported to police but the 32-year-old’s whereabouts remain unknown. His Chadema party has accused the government of trying to assassinate him.
Critics say Magufuli has unleashed a wave of oppression since his election in 2015, cracking down on opposition figures and curbing press freedom. Two other critics of the president’s regime were sentenced to five months in prison for allegedly defaming him.
Nyagali, who has faced charges of sedition in the past, had labelled the Tanzanian president a “hypocrite” in a Twitter post to his nearly 20,000 followers just hours before his disappearance.
And like previous critics before him, he had received online threats.
Opposition lawmaker Tundu Lissu is still recovering in a Brussels hospital after being shot last September.
Tanzanian civil society groups signed a joint statement earlier in the year condemning Magufuli’s “unprecedented” crackdown on human and democratic rights.
In April Reporters Without Borders said journalists were being “attacked with impunity” in Tanzania as the country slid 25 places on the World Press Freedom Index, AFP reported.
– African News Agency
