Tanzania demo over graves

By John Ngahyoma
BBC, Dar es Salaam

Tanzanian Muslims say they are discriminated against in the country

Hundreds of angry Muslims in Tanzania's main city, Dar es Salaam, have held a demonstration to protest at a government decision to move graves to make room for a development project.

They gathered at the Ilala Muslim graveyard, in the city's suburb, after Friday prayers, determined to prevent attempts to move the graves to the remote town of Segerea, 18 kilometres (11 miles) west of the capital.

We will stay here [at the graveyard] and stop this work even if it costs us our lives to let the government know that we cannot be pushed around Ayoub Aimen

"As Muslims we are not going to allow the government to ignore Muslim leaders and enter shoddy contracts with individuals to justify this humiliation," said Muslim community leadern Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda.

"Muslim leaders said no to the exercise of exhuming bodies from their graves - why are they tricking people," he said.

The authorities are planning to build a mayor's office, a secondary school and vocational centre on the site - the project has already created about 160 jobs for unemployed young people in the area.

'Manhandle'

Earlier a group of Muslims cut down branches to build a makeshift fence around the cemetery to try to stop the work.

Tanzanian authorities want to use the site for a development project

They also vowed to "manhandle anyone who tried to get into the fence and continue with the digging".

The Ilala municipal council said on Tuesday that all planning formalities and religious rites were agreed upon by religious and government leaders and followed through before the actual work began on Monday.

Muslims, who make up a third of Tanzania's population, complain that they are treated as second class citizens and the tampering with graves against their wishes illustrates this.