Dar es Salaam — The government has suspended the licence of Mwanahalisi newspaper for six months, stopping the long-established Kiswahili investigative weekly from publishing or distributing in print and online from August 19.
The Information Services Department, known as MAELEZO, said the penalty followed an article alleging that Vice-President Emmanuel Nchimbi was under pressure to resign.
The department said the article, headlined “Nchimbi agoma kujiuzulu” — Nchimbi refuses to resign — breached the third condition of the paper’s publishing licence, which requires compliance with the Media Services Act and its regulations. In the official notice, MAELEZO said the report did not meet the duty to ensure “accuracy and balance.”
The article, reproduced by JamiiForums, relied on unnamed sources to say that Vice President Emmanuel Nchimbi faced pressure linked to alleged disagreements within the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and government.
It also attributed remarks to Information Minister Paul Makonda and described a purported referral of Nchimbi to a CCM ethics committee, but it did not include on-record responses from Nchimbi, Makonda or named CCM officials.
MAELEZO said the paper had also used Makonda’s photograph under a caption identifying him as Nchimbi, an error the department described as evidence of failures in reporting and editorial checks. It said Mwanahalisi had been verbally warned in February and issued a written warning on May 8 over earlier editions.
READ MORE: CCM Political Commentator Who Reported Abduction Says Captors Forced Him to Insult Vice President
According to the notice, the publisher was heard on August 7 and given three more days to submit a written explanation, which the department found inadequate. It said the sanction applies to electronic publication as well as the physical newspaper, and that the publisher may appeal to the minister responsible for information within 30 days.
A licensing power
The legal basis cited by the department is section 9(b) of the Media Services Act, which authorises the Director of Information Services to suspend or cancel a print-media licence if the licensee fails to comply with prescribed licence conditions.
Section 10 provides an internal appeal to the minister, followed by recourse to the High Court for a person dissatisfied with the minister’s decision.
That structure means the suspension power is currently available to the state under domestic law, although its application is subject to an administrative appeal and possible judicial challenge.
The current order frames the case as one of alleged professional failures — accuracy, balance, verification and editing — rather than as a finding that the political claims in the story were false.
A Tanzanian High Court ruling directly addressing section 9(b) did not strike it down. In Prisca Nyanguba Chogero v Attorney General, a 2022 constitutional case brought after the 14-day suspension of Uhuru newspaper, the court dismissed a challenge to the provision and said it was designed to secure professional compliance and protect others’ rights, with “mechanism of check and balance” through the statutory appeal and court-review process.
READ MORE: Kivulini Talks: The State of Media in Tanzania—Alive, Ailing, or Dead?
The ruling, however, did not give the government an unlimited licence to ban publications without scrutiny. In 2018, the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) ordered the annulment of a three-year ban on Mseto newspaper imposed under the repealed Newspapers Act, finding that the particular decision was unreasonable, unlawful and disproportionate because it lacked cogent reasons, did not establish a public-interest justification and did not afford a meaningful opportunity to respond.
The regional court went further in its March 2019 judgment in Media Council of Tanzania and Others v Attorney General, finding a series of Media Services Act provisions incompatible with Tanzania’s obligations under the East African Community Treaty, including vague content restrictions, criminal defamation and false-statement offences, sedition clauses, and the minister’s discretionary power to prohibit publications.
The EACJ directed Tanzania to bring the Act into conformity with the treaty, but it did not identify section 9(b), the licence-suspension clause now used against Mwanahalisi, among the provisions it declared incompatible. The contrast between the 2022 domestic ruling and the EACJ’s wider proportionality approach is likely to shape any future challenge to the present order.
Clashes with the state
Mwanahalisi is owned by Hali Halisi Publishers Ltd, a fact recorded in the High Court proceedings over the newspaper’s previous suspension. The paper has long occupied a prominent place in the country’s political and investigative press: a 2009 academic case study called it “the leading weekly in Tanzania” in examining its watchdog reporting on government corruption.
The latest suspension is not the paper’s first encounter with state sanctions. Human Rights Watch reported that authorities banned Mwanahalisi in 2017 over allegations that it had tarnished the name of then-President John Magufuli, before the government lifted that ban — alongside bans on Mseto, Mawio and Tanzania Daima — in February 2022.
Nor is the present action the only recent restriction on a news publication. In April, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) suspended digital broadcaster Jambo TV for 90 days over commentary published ahead of the release of an inquiry report on post-election unrest; the outlet was accused of carrying inaccurate and unverified content.
MAELEZO’s current notice also summons another newspaper, Jamvi la Habari, to explain recent coverage and alleged failures to submit copies of editions to the department. The notice does not suspend Jamvi la Habari, but the simultaneous action signals continued regulatory pressure on print outlets. Over the past weeks, the outlets have run several stories outlining their dissatisfaction with the Vice President, with some pointing to a strategic attack from the outlet.
Concerns sharpen
The cases come as press freedom observers describe a worsening environment for the independent press in the country. Reporters Without Borders, for instance, placed Tanzania 117th of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, down 22 places from 2025, and said criticism of authorities can result in outlet suspensions.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a July submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council that press freedom in Tanzania remained “fragile and vulnerable to executive control,” citing the continued use of restrictive laws against journalists and media houses.
For the government, the Mwanahalisi decision is presented as enforcement of professional standards after warnings and an opportunity to be heard.
For press-freedom advocates, however, the case will test whether a six-month closure of an entire publication — including its online edition — is a proportionate response to alleged reporting and editing failures, especially where the country’s courts and regional tribunal have supplied different benchmarks for limiting expression.
