12 Sep 2025 | Asia and Pacific, Nepal, News and features
On Monday 8 September I drove into Bouddha on the north eastern corner of Kathmandu from my home in Besigaun. It was just like any other day at this time of year with the streets crowded with cars and scooters and local buses stopping at every junction, their conductors with the doors swung open, shouting out their lists of destinations, cramming passengers into every available space for a 20 rupee bus ride into town. I was on my way to Yaks recording studio around lunchtime to continue work on an audio project and once settled into the soundproof room on the 5th floor of the building began my session reading from the script. Less than two hours into the recording I took off my headphones, surprised by the noises filtering through the walls and into the mic rendering the session useless. That’s not normal. I waited a few minutes, and then, rather than making a complaint to the management, I decided I had done enough for the day and packed up. As I left, I noticed the workstations in the design studio all vacant. Something is not right.
It wasn’t until I arrived home around 4pm that the news of the shooting and killing of Gen-Z protesters outside the parliament buildings became apparent. The shock of the tragedy was starting to reveal itself on social media. It was only then that I connected the commotion outside the recording studio with the protest taking place in other parts of the city and I began to realise the gravity of the situation. The videos of protesters in what appeared to be quite harmless situations being shot and killed by the Nepal Police was something I had never expected to see in Nepal, or anywhere else for that matter. It wasn’t until I woke the following morning to the angry sounds of demonstrators in our neighbourhood that I realised that the Nepal I had known as my second home for the last 13 years would never be the same again. I was overwhelmed with sadness for this country and its people who have bravely worked hard and suffered so long to lift themselves out of poverty despite the setbacks caused by natural disasters, economic hardship and political incompetence.
So what was it that brought Gen Z out onto the streets to protest that fateful Monday morning in September? On the Thursday before, the government announced that they were blocking 26 social media apps—ostensibly because those companies were not registered in Nepal, and until they registered and paid their dues, they would be banned from conducting their business in Nepal. That, in principle, seemed fair enough to me. Businesses should be registered, but why had the government waited more than 15 years to implement the ruling? This was not a step-by-step plan which would have caused mild irritation to most Nepalis. It was a serious threat to millions who depend on social media as vital sales channels through which they conduct their small businesses. A blanket ban, instantly executed, wreaked instant economic hardship on a significant proportion of the entrepreneurial sector of the population and sent them into panic mode overnight. Added to that, the younger generation understands the value of social media as their main avenue of expression through which they can express their grievances and frustrations with the current situation in Nepal. The older generation in government positions were largely ignorant of the importance of social media to the younger generation and dismissed them out of hand. They misjudged the situation and ignored the signals coming from the young to their peril. By Tuesday morning the ban on social media had been lifted, but the damage had already been done.
To understand better just how dependent Nepalis are on social media, one should be aware that Nepal’s economy depends to a large extent on remittances from family members working abroad—mostly in the Middle East, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. These families, split families, through no fault of their own, are torn apart because of a lack of well paid jobs in their own country. They rely heavily on social media to keep connected—to keep the fragile thread of family alive—and to dream of a life where they can live in the same house as their loved ones, instead of decades in forced exile just to survive. The children of these migrant workers are using the savings of their parents and leaving the country by the million every year to study abroad and take jobs in a variety of professions in the developed world, with never the intention to return. Nepal is haemorrhaging its young blood faster than it can ever replace it and the cost to the nation is literally a question of life or death.
This blocking of social media was the spark that ignited the flame of discontent that motivated Gen Z to get out on the streets of Kathmandu and protest their dissatisfaction to the government. But the protest was not about the blocking of social media – that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The protest was about the rampant corruption in government, cronyism and nepotism and lack of transparency in a government hopelessly entrenched in its ways—turning a blind eye to the chronic needs of its people. The evidence of corruption became even more apparent when the social media profiles of the grown-up children of members of the government and other political parties showed them living in lavish apartments around the world, having expensive holidays and sporting Rolex watches and Gucci handbags and driving cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, while their fathers were apparently only earning a measly 400 USD a month in Nepal.
So where did all that money come from to furnish these people with such lavish lifestyles? To my mind you don’t have to look further than the half-completed infrastructure projects littering the countryside. Projects lying unfinished for five years or more – disintegrating before my eyes, washed away by a monsoon of diverted funds. But what do I really know about the inner workings of the governing of this country? Very little. I don’t have the evidence. I just see unfinished projects everywhere and a population whose patience has run out. Add to that the pictures allegedly showing the children of government officials living lifestyles abroad well beyond the reach of many middle class Europeans and you have a powder keg of emotional dynamite ready to blow up the Houses of Parliament. That is what happened.
On the day after the Gen Z protest, the public took to the streets in anger and frustration at the government’s lack of empathy for the loss of life of their children. There were no apologies—no statements of regret. No taking responsibility for this act of aggression. For every child murdered by the Nepal Police there were thousands who came out into the streets. What followed became one of the blackest days in Nepal’s history—a day of utter devastation with historic government buildings, hotels, police stations and businesses set on fire and routes for fire engines blocked by the mobs to prevent any access to the properties by the emergency services. Ministers were tracked down and subjected to mob violence, their houses ransacked and burned to the ground—the stashes of their ill-gotten wealth reduced to flames, floating into the smoke-filled sky.
This morning I ventured out into a city reeling from the shock of the events of the previous three days. With no interim government yet established, the army has taken control of the city, imposing a curfew with twice daily access to shops and essential services amounting to five daylight hours split between early morning and late afternoon. I set off with my camera and international press card to take a few shots of what I had only witnessed on social media. It was a heartbreaking reconnaissance. The streets were littered with burned out carcasses of cars and trucks. The local police headquarters was a blackened skeleton of brick and concrete. The army stopped me the second I parked my scooter outside the burned-out shell of the local superstore, ignored my press card and told me in no uncertain terms to leave the area immediately. I left.
But the feeling on the street was not one of fear or trepidation. People were going about their business shopping at the small local stalls and supermarkets with only the slightest sense of anxiety to get home before the 10am curfew. Electricians were busy repairing cables damaged by the rioting and local groups were clearing the streets of the flotsam and jetsam of the days before. On social media there was progress being made by representatives of the Gen Z generation–the young hopefuls on whose shoulders the future of Nepal now rests. And they have a strong contender to take responsibility for an interim cabinet who has the advantage of age and experience to guide them. Former Chief Justice of Nepal Sushila Karki is perceived by most of my close friends as good news for the country. She is smart, honest, and a woman with a commendable track record. And she knows the law. There is a lot of work to be done to undo the decades of corruption and poor governance, but I get the feeling that the will of the Nepalese is strong enough to endure the years it will take to achieve a more fair and balanced society that will turn this tragedy into a solid and lasting period of prosperity not only for Gen Z but for future generations to come.
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Index asked Gary to speak to Nepalis about their hopes and fears following the violence of the last few days.
The author and translator Viplob Pratik said, “I have a clear understanding of the Gen Z movement, and I deeply admire their courage. This movement did not emerge overnight; it took shape after a long period of simmering dissatisfaction and suffocation among the youth regarding the government system of Nepal. Consequently, this Gen Z resistance is a reaction to prolonged repression — thoughts and emotions subdued by a ruling party that has consistently neglected the desires, needs, and interests of young people. The government’s tendency to take the youth’s voice for granted, to ignore them, and to underestimate their capacity for mature decision-making, played a significant role in igniting the current situation. As a result, Nepal witnessed the pivotal events of 8 September 2025.”
He added, “We do not need to teach Gen Z; they know what they are doing. However, now that the initial wave of the movement has calmed and it is evolving, I am disheartened to see various entities—whether from the old political parties, insiders, or outsiders—trying to capitalise on the moment. They are essentially attempting to exploit the loopholes for their own gain. Witnessing such a scenario fills me with profound concern. I strongly believe that if the outcome of this movement is not guided onto the right path by fair and deserving hands, it will be a tragedy that history will mourn.”
Rajan Ghimire, a humanitarian, development and rights activist, recounted his own thoughts on the past three days.
“Day 1: The morning began with optimism, but by the afternoon I felt deep anger at the government’s brutal response toward the youth.
Day 2: I started the day still angry, but by midday that anger gave way to fear. In the evening I felt a growing sense of hopelessness. Near my home, there is a gas station with a garage attached. After hearing that people had set fire to Bhatbhateni in Koteshwor, I was alarmed to learn that someone set a vehicle on fire in the garage near the gas station. We feared the gas station might explode. Thankfully, the fire was contained, but none of us could sleep that night.
Day 3: The day passed under a cloud of uncertainty, not knowing what would happen next.”
He added, “Thankfully no major infrastructure damage was reported but we lost human lives. It feels as if our country has been pushed back by years, even decades. I hold on to hope that we can rise from the ashes and rebuild but I remain confused about how.”
Suraj Ghimire said, “Right now, leaders from different parties are trying to break the unity of the protesters, taking advantage of divisions and pushing their own agendas online. They think this will help them regain power, but the people have spoken, the ones that were out on the streets don’t want them back. What they want is simple and clear: the president’s resignation and the dissolution of the current parliament.”
Medical student Nabin Poudel said, “The ongoing Gen Z movement is undeniably legitimate, embodying years of accumulated frustration over systemic corruption and decades of ineffective leadership. Yet, the prolonged indecision regarding the dissolution of the lower house and the formation of an interim government threatens to deepen political instability rather than resolve it.”
The winter 2025 edition of Index on Censorship magazine will look at both the silencing of Gen Z around the world and how influencers like Charlie Kirk, who was murdered in September, became important voices for this demographic.
11 Sep 2025 | Americas, News and features, United States
In 2013, as part of research for my book on Chinese youth, I sat down with one of the country’s most notorious young nationalists. Rao Jin was known for running a website, then known as Anti-CNN.com, that was against the American 24-hour news network (as a proxy for the West). Ideologically we could not have been further removed. But his views were (and still are) popular and I needed to understand how he arrived at them. We shared tea and despite our differences we spoke calmly. It was very civil.
That word civil is not one we can use right now for the USA, where the murder of Charlie Kirk and the response to it expose just how far we’ve drifted from basic norms of decency. The right-wing influencer and Donald Trump ally was shot and killed, aged 31, while speaking at a university in Utah. He was silenced, literally, though by who and for what reason we can only guess right now.
It was a horrifying display and because some people on social media seem to have no boundaries, I have accidentally seen, when scrolling, the moment it happened. I wish I hadn’t.
Horrifying too has been the commentary. Hours after the shooting, President Trump posted on Truth Social that his “administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence” and that the “radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people”. Trump’s words could be seen as an invitation to retribution. They’re full of assumption – that he was killed by someone from the left who opposed his views – and they’re inaccurate. Claims that violence is a liberal issue, echoed by Elon Musk and many others too since yesterday, are rubbish, a smack in the face of facts. Political violence happens on the extreme edges of the left-right spectrum. It was just two months ago that a Democrat lawmaker and her husband were killed.
The USA has also always been marked by such violence. I have first-hand experience of it. On a visit to LA in 2002 I had to duck behind a bus stop after two men sparred in a queue at Starbucks, leading to one pulling a gun on the other outside. Beyond my own experience are the well-known examples – the Kennedys, Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, Huey Long, Harvey Milk – to name just a few.
That said, it’s clear that in today’s USA a violent form of authoritarianism is growing, feeding off an angry, deeply polarised population and aided by lax gun laws. Kirk’s murder is sadly just another piece of the puzzle, something we are trying to understand at Index and to counteract.
While Trump’s comments are terrifying in their implication, the remarks of those who either defended the shooter, diminished the horror or delighted in a form of schadenfreude were very troubling too. It is one thing to call out Kirk for his views. Many were vile and at the limits of what might be considered acceptable speech. It is another to badmouth a man in his dying moments, or after, with the implication being that he got what he deserved. Some have even responded to our post on Bluesky in such a way. It’s strange that I have to say here that Index will never condone violence.
As is the case with Rao Jin, I am sure that if Kirk and I had ever met we’d have vehemently disagreed with one another. Is it so hard though for people to hold two truths at once – that you can abhor someone’s views and abhor their murder too? Is it so hard to listen to people across the spectrum, to use words to counter speech you don’t like, not bullets?
The murder might peel open the USA to expose its fault lines like no other in recent years. It comes in the same week that the country’s leading free speech organisation, Fire, issued their annual report on free speech on campus, in which they said “the atmosphere isn’t just cautious – it’s hostile”. According to the report a majority of students surveyed opposed their college hosting six hypothetical speakers with controversial views and that students of every political persuasion showed “a deep unwillingness to encounter controversial ideas”. There’s a bitter irony here in the report’s timing.
The dust will settle on Kirk’s murder. The person behind it, perhaps already arrested, will likely be named. Their motivations will hopefully be aired. Maybe it was nothing to do with his views. As someone speculated on our Bluesky post, “what if he was having an affair with the wife of an army sniper?” Maybe he was.
Still, the broader context and point remains. We have a president in power who is not in favour of free speech for all and whose comments essentially encourage political violence, likely because it is expedient – it makes coming after ideological enemies easier. At the same time we have too many people who condone or downplay violence when it concerns those who they don’t agree with. But violence begets violence. Left unchecked it will come for us all and no one’s views, no matter how confronting, should make us lose sight of that.
10 Sep 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, Burma, Cambodia, News and features, United States, Vietnam, Volume 54.02 Summer 2025
This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 2 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled Land of the Free?: Trump’s war on speech at home and abroad, published on 21 July 2025. Read more about the issue here.
Kyaw Min Htun, a Burmese editor and reporter, moved from his home in Myanmar to the USA more than 20 years ago, seeking a place where he could finally report freely. For two decades, the USA provided that, allowing him to secure various roles at Radio Free Asia (RFA), which is based in Washington DC. On 15 March, however, that all changed.
Alongside about 75% of his US-based colleagues, Htun was told not to go into work. His job was one of thousands of casualties of president Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to government-backed initiatives.
“Our hands are tied and we cannot do our jobs,” Htun, who was deputy director of RFA when he was furloughed, told Index.
At the beginning of May, RFA announced it would be terminating the contracts of more than 90% of its US-based staff and shutting down several language services. Days later, this move was delayed due to an administrative stay from the courts.
On 14 March, Trump had signed an executive order to stop federal funding to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees US-funded international media. It came amid a broader assessment by the State Department of all overseas spending that has so far led to the termination of the country’s support for more than 80% of the global aid projects it had backed.
USAGM financially supports RFA and other media platforms including Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Its aim – since its inception with VOA in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda as a form of soft power – has always been “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy”. Collectively, USAGM outlets have created news in 64 languages, reaching 427 million people each week.
In many countries, such outlets are a lifeline, offering a window into what’s happening at home and abroad amid wars and famines, disasters and conflicts.
RFA – which was broadcasting in nine languages in China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and North Korea – has been a fixture in Asia’s media landscape since 1996, when it was established to counter propaganda. It has won awards for covering under-reported issues, including the plight of North Korean escapees, the impact of the civil war in Myanmar and the treatment of the Uyghurs.
The Trump administration, however, sees VOA and RFA as “radical propaganda”, and what it calls “anti-Trump content”.
Elon Musk – the tech billionaire and, at the time, a senior adviser to the president – said on his social media platform X that RFA and RFE were made up of “radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1billion [a] year of US taxpayer money”.
While support for some outlets could resume amid several lawsuits that have been lodged against USAGM and the government, many are worried about the ramifications already being felt by journalists, citizens and democracy as a whole in Asia.
The fallout
Aleksandra Bielakowska, director of advocacy and assistance at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told Index that many of RFA’s regional reporters were journalists working in exile or underground in places such as Cambodia or Myanmar.
Journalists including Mech Dara, who exposed trafficking and scam compounds in Cambodia, and Sai Zaw Thaike, who reported on the mistreatment of inmates inside Myanmar prisons, are being persecuted by their governments. These journalists operate clandestinely to ensure stories from their countries are told, free from state influence.
The funding cut meant RFA had to sever the contracts of most of its local freelancers, exposing them in a region where press freedom is rapidly in decline. Myanmar, China, North Korea and Vietnam are among the top 10 worst countries for journalist safety. Last year, 20 journalists were killed in Asia (up from 12 in 2023) and 30% of global arrests of journalists took place on the continent.
Several efforts are being made to curtail media freedoms in countries across Southeast Asia in particular, said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Vietnam is one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists; in Tibet, the Chinese government forbids foreign media from entering; and in Hong Kong, since the adoption of Beijing’s National Security Law in 2020, many outlets have been forced to close and their journalists arrested on national security charges.
Bielakowska said there was currently little protection available for journalists in the region, and the situation could get worse when “authoritarian regimes […] don’t see any opposition from democratic countries”.
Certain authoritarian leaders celebrated the USA’s abandonment of such publications, said Lau. Cambodia’s leader Hun Sen praised Trump on Facebook for combating “fake news”, while Global Times, part of China’s state media, lauded the cuts, claiming “almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it”.
“This just tells you actually how impactful that reporting really was,” Lau said, adding that the US cuts had made the work of restricting media freedoms by these governments much easier.
“Press freedom is definitely on the retreat, and what comes in its place is never anything great,” said Rohit Mahajan, chief communications officer at RFA.
A lack of safety globally
Back in the USA, reporters’ jobs are at risk. RFA has put the majority of its staff in its headquarters on leave and VOA has had to furlough 1,300 staff, the majority of whom are journalists.
Washington-based Htun, although among those affected, considers himself lucky. With US citizenship – he sought political asylum in 2005 – he can remain in the country, but many of RFA’s team come from Asia and their US visas are reliant on their work status. For some, the prospect of returning home – potentially to a country such as Cambodia or China where they may have helped to highlight human rights abuses – is a dangerous one.
“With the current administration’s policies, it is very hard to say they are safe even if they apply for asylum here, because they could be denied any time and they could be deported,” said Htun. “This is an unprecedented, man-made disaster.”
Aside from the threat of deportation, the furloughed staff are now not earning and are scrambling to find work. They are among thousands in the capital who have lost their jobs since the wave of executive orders, which have seen other government departments closed or drastically reduced in size.
This means that competition for jobs is fierce, said Htun. The USAGM Employee Association is collating donations to support journalists affected.
Information black holes
Aside from the impact on the safety of journalists, the shuttering of these media platforms, or even just a reduction in their content, impacts the public, limiting information.
It creates a “black hole of information”, said Bielakowska, who added that this would certainly be the case in countries such as Laos and Tibet, which are more closed. In countries with strict authoritarian regimes, VOA and RFA are often the only accessible forms of information other than state-sponsored or heavily-censored media.
This will lead to “a dramatic turning off of a pipeline of accurate and independent news stories about what is happening within authoritarian states”, said Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “There isn’t as good a source in Lao, Khmer, Vietnamese, Tibetan as RFA. People will lose touch with the real world.”
Many in Myanmar – where a civil war has raged since 2021 and the military has shut down internet access in parts of the country – rely on shortwave radio for information on the war and wider events, such as the destructive earthquake in March. While the BBC and VOA are available, only a portion of their content focuses on Myanmar whereas 100% of RFA Burma’s content is focused on the country, said Htun. He explained that a content vacuum gave the Myanmar military junta an opportunity to exploit the situation by sharing their own propaganda and misinformation.
Samady Ou, an American-Cambodian activist and youth ambassador for Khmer Movement for Democracy, cannot go home to Cambodia because his democracy work has put a target on his back. He said that there was no reliable media outlet in the country without VOA and RFA.
“Right now, in Cambodia, we don’t have any news medium left that is independent and not pro-government,” he said. “When there’s unjust goings on like land grabs or Chinese big companies coming in taking away land, [Cambodians] have no voice at all.”
US pro-democracy organisation Freedom House ranks Cambodia as “not free” as a result of a “severely repressive environment” driven by the Cambodian People’s Party which “has maintained pressure on the opposition, independent press outlets and demonstrators with intimidation, politically motivated prosecutions and violence”.
Looking ahead
Experts hope the funding cut is only temporary and the USA will see the value in supporting regional media.
Historically, USAGM has always enjoyed strong bipartisan support from Congress across every administration, explained Mahajan, calling these platforms “unique tools in America’s soft power”.
Most USAID funding in Asia has been directed towards peace and security projects, indicating that this has historically been a vested interest for the USA.
“I think there’s a consensus inside of the Congress, even right now, that China and authoritarian regimes are one of the biggest challenges of the USA, and without the right information, freedom of the press and access to reliable information, we’ll have no updates about these countries, and these countries will also manage to spread their model of information inside of Asia, which is a direct threat to the USA itself,” said Bielakowska. Whether the new administration can be convinced of this is yet to be seen.
In the meantime, RFA has filed a lawsuit, claiming the government is unlawfully withholding funds and that only Congress can fund or defund an organisation it has created.
“We are trying to keep RFA afloat as we pursue a legal challenge to the termination of our grant, which we believe is unlawful,” Mahajan said. RFE and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks have also filed lawsuits.
In April, the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted an injunction to restore funding to USAGM, but the government is yet to release the funds. Htun predicts that the legal process will wage on for months to come, potentially escalating to the Supreme Court.
“This drama could take longer than expected – probably two or three more months,” he said.
During that time, journalists will remain out of work and exposed while citizens across Asia will be far less informed.
But there is always a chance that other funders could be found for these media platforms.
“Other states and entities and private organisations could fill some of the gaps in funding for media outlets,” said Kurlantzick, who called on powerful countries in the region to stand up for media freedom by committing more funds.
Lau said it was in the interests of other concerned governments to have access to reliable information, as well as to the private sector operating in some of these countries.
Such is the public support for these media sources that Ou believes the public in Asian countries may also crowdfund to keep them functioning.
In the meantime, Bielakowska is confident that RFA and VOA are used to operating in fragile situations.
“Even with this blow, I still hope that they can continue working on the ground and find ways to support themselves.”
9 Sep 2025 | Africa, News and features, Newsletters, Tanzania
Social media activist Edgar Mwakabela, better known as Sativa, shouldn’t be alive today. In an interview with the BBC this week he spoke about how he was abducted last June in Tanzania’s main city Dar es Salaam and later taken to a remote area. His captors interrogated him about his activism and his criticism of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party. He was tortured and shot in the head. The bullet went through his skull and shattered his jaw. He was meant to die. Somehow he didn’t. That he still has a voice is the only positive part of this grim story.
It’s made all the grimmer by the fact that it stands out because of Sativa’s survival. It’s unlike the story of Ali Mohamed Kibao, whose body was found beaten and doused with acid last September. It’s unlike Modestus Timbisimilwa, who was shot dead by police last November as he tried to stop interference at polling stations. It’s unlike George Juma Mohamed and Steven Chalamila, both killed in their own homes the night before. All were part of the opposition.
Tanzania goes to the polls next month but as these examples show it’s insulting to suggest the elections will be remotely free or fair.
The CCM have been in power for decades, ever since colonial rule ended in Tanzania in the 1960s. They are currently led by Samia Suluhu Hassan, who proceeded the increasingly autocratic John Magufuli, a regular on the pages of Index (see here, here and here). When Hassan first took office as Tanzania’s president, there was cautious optimism that the rights landscape would improve – and it did for a bit. Gains were made in the realms of media freedom and protest rights. A ban on opposition gatherings was lifted. The tide has however turned.
The main opposition party, Chadema, has been barred from participating in the election. Chadema’s leader, Tundu Lissu, is currently in jail charged with treason, after he called for electoral reforms.
In addition to those who’ve been killed or jailed are the many disappeared. Posters of the missing have become a pre-election fixture. One high-profile case is that of artist Shadrack Chaula, who last July was imprisoned for an online video in which he allegedly “insulted” Hassan. He paid a hefty fine in exchange for his freedom only to disappear a month later. Another is Deusdedith Soka, a 30-year-old Chadema youth leader who disappeared last August after calling for a demonstration precisely against disappearances.
Hassan has condemned many of these brutal acts, denied any involvement and called for investigations. But they’re still happening under her watch in a country she leads. Last year Lissu said that Hassan “has done with a smile what Magufuli did with a snarl.” Compared to the execrable Magufuli, who was nicknamed the “bulldozer”, we’ve paid little attention to her. It’s clear that needs to change.
