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Violence Poses Threat to Tanzania's `Democratic Values,' EU Says

Violence Poses Threat to Tanzania's `Democratic Values,' EU Says

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union said a wave of violence in Tanzania that included the death of a student and the attempted murder of a lawmaker pose a threat to democratic values in East Africa’s second-largest economy.

“We are worried by the rising number of reports of violence in the last months,” the EU said Friday in a statement backed by the Canadian, Norwegian and Swiss ambassadors. Such upheaval has occurred in a country “widely respected in the world for its stability, peacefulness and freedoms,” it said.

The EU statement comes a week after the U.S. voiced concern over the rise of “politically related confrontations and violence,” citing the killing of an opposition official campaigning in a local election. Since then, a 22-year-old student was shot and killed on a bus in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, during clashes between the police and supporters of the main opposition party.

The EU also condemned the shooting and serious wounding of lawmaker Tundu Lissu last year, the disappearance of journalist Azory Gwanda and “lethal assaults upon government representatives, authorities and citizens” in the Coast region in the past two years.

To contact the reporter on this story: Omar Mohammed in Dar es Salaam at omohammed4@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Michael Gunn, Andre Janse van Vuuren

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