{{The Roman Catholic Diocese in Zanzibar on Monday blamed the Zanzibar government for what he termed as inability to protect Christian religious leaders.}}<\/p>\n
The Zanzibar Bishop Augustine Shao told a news conference in Zanzibar that the Church has been reporting evidence on threats issued to the Christian leaders but \u201call these have fallen on deaf ears\u201d.<\/p>\n
Bishop Shao said some people had been sending threats and hatred text messages and leaflets but nobody had been arrested in connection to that.<\/p>\n
He was briefing journalists on funeral arrangements for Father Evarist Mushi, 55, who was murdered on Sunday near a Church at Mtoni in the Zanzibar Municipality. <\/p>\n
In a quick rejoinder, the Zanzibar police commissioner, Mr Mussa Ali Mussa, dismissed Bishop Shao\u2019s observations, saying the police were not working under anybody\u2019s pressure. <\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want us to protect Catholics, even if they are in their normal chores? We have so many cases and we are interrogating some suspects,\u201d said Mr Mussa.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe are not working under anybody\u2019s pressure. We have also seen leaflets in the streets but we don\u2019t know people behind them. How can we arrest them?\u201d<\/p>\n
Bishop Shao said the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations have written to President Jakaya Kikwete and the Zanzibar leader, Dr Ali Mohammed Shein, but no action had been taken.<\/p>\n
He said Christians were being attacked by people who received assistance from overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not saying that the police should guard us in our homes but they should at least listen to us when we seek their assistance,\u201d said the cleric.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the late Fr Mushi\u2019s funeral arrangements, Bishop Shao said a requiem mass will be held today at the St Joseph Parish at Minara Miwili and later laid to rest at Kitope.<\/p>\n
He said Fr Mushi has served the Zanzibar Parish for the past 10 years. He moved to Zanzibar when he was 18 years old. <\/p>\n
Fr Thomas Assenga, a colleague of Fr Mushi, said he spent the last moment talking to him for four hours on Saturday night. He was shoot dead the following day at around 7am.<\/p>\n
NMG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{The Roman Catholic Diocese in Zanzibar on Monday blamed the Zanzibar government for what he termed as inability to protect Christian religious leaders.}} The Zanzibar Bishop Augustine Shao told a news conference in Zanzibar that the Church has been reporting evidence on threats issued to the Christian leaders but \u201call these have fallen on deaf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-6021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6021"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=6021"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=6021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}