Security forces and police clash following disputed election in Tanzania; UN says 10 dead

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) — Hundreds of demonstrators faced off with police in Tanzania's commercial capital Friday to demand the national electoral body stop announcing election results that have sparked protests, leading to the deployment of the military and an internet shutdown. The U.N said it had received credible reports that 10 people had died in the protests.

State television was broadcasting the mainland results of Wednesday's vote in which the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party that has governed Tanzania since independence in 1961 was seeking to extend its time in power.

Presidential candidates from the two main opposition parties were barred from running, and incumbent President Samia Suluhu Hassan faced 16 other candidates from smaller parties who hardly campaigned.

The political maneuvering by Tanzanian authorities is unprecedented even in a country where single-party rule has been the norm since the advent of multi-party politics in 1992. Government critics point out that previous leaders tolerated opposition while maintaining a firm grip on power, whereas Hassan is accused of leading with an authoritarian style that rejects calls for change that are upending politics elsewhere in the region.

The CCM retained the presidential seat in the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, which remained calm Friday with a heavy military presence. The electoral commission said incumbent President Hussein Mwinyi won 78.8% of the votes there.

The opposition said there was “massive fraud” in Zanzibar's results and announced it would reveal its next steps.

Hundreds of protesters faced off with police in the nation's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, on the third day of protests Friday.

A spokesman for the U.N. human rights office, Seif Magango, told a U.N. briefing in Geneva by video from Nairobi that credible reports of 10 deaths had been reported in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam, alongside Shinyanga and Morogoro towns.

“We call on the security forces to refrain from using unnecessary or disproportionate force, including lethal weapons, against protesters, and to make every effort to deescalate tensions. Protesters should demonstrate peacefully," he said.

Magango called for the reinstatement of the internet saying "curtailment of communication will only further undermine public trust in the electoral process.”

Chaos erupted Wednesday afternoon as young people took to the streets to protest the harassment of opposition leaders and their limited election choices. Several vehicles, a gas station, and police stations were set ablaze by protesters.

The government has not commented on the extent of the damage or any casualties. Amnesty International reported that two people were killed during Wednesday’s protests.

The protests have spread across the country, and the government has postponed the reopening of colleges and universities, which had been set for next Monday.

The army chief, Gen. Jacob John Mkunda, condemned the violence and said Thursday the military would work with other security agencies to contain the situation.

Tanzanians in the diaspora have been hosting daily X Spaces to analyze the protests and discuss ways of financially supporting the demonstrators.

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan casts her vote during the general elections at Chamwino polling station in Dodoma, Tanzania, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo)

People protest in the streets of Arusha, Tanzania, on election day Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/str)

Police patrol the streets on election day in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo)

People protest in the streets of Arusha, Tanzania, on election day Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/str)

People protest in the streets of Arusha, Tanzania, on election day Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/str)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.

Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.

“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.

African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar's military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by U.S. President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.

As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”

Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.

“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof," he said. "This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.

The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.

Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.

Gambia rejects Myanmar's claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”

In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.

FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2017, file photo, smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya lived, Myanmar. (AP Photo, File)