{"id":22594,"date":"2026-01-19T15:25:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T13:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/tanzania-president-expresses-regret-over-election-internet-shutdown\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:32","slug":"tanzania-president-expresses-regret-over-election-internet-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/tanzania-president-expresses-regret-over-election-internet-shutdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanzania President expresses regret over election internet shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tanzania\u2019s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has expressed regret to diplomats and foreign nationals affected by the internet shutdown imposed during the country\u2019s general elections in October last year.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The nationwide blackout lasted for nearly a week after the polls, as political tensions flared in the aftermath of the vote. The elections were followed by post-election violence, which left an undisclosed number of people dead.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The communications shutdown drew criticism from diplomatic missions, civil society groups and international observers, who said it disrupted essential services, business operations and access to information during a critical period.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In her remarks, Suluhu Hassan acknowledged the impact of the shutdown on the international community and said the government was aware of the challenges it had created.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tanzania has previously justified restrictive measures during periods of unrest as necessary to maintain public order, but the incident has renewed debate over the use of internet blackouts during elections.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22595,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-22594","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Tanzania\u2019s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has expressed regret to diplomats and foreign nationals affected by the internet shutdown","published_date":"2026-01-19 17:01:10","news_description":"Tanzania\u2019s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has expressed regret to diplomats and foreign nationals affected by the internet shutdown","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25839,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22594\/revisions\/25839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=22594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}