Free Republic

Days after authorities in Zanzibar said men are banned from braiding their hair on the island, Minister of Information, Youth, Culture, and Sports Tabia Maulid Mwita, apologised for the confusion caused by the statement. Mwita said the 2015 law being enforced is meant only for Zanzibar men, not those from outside the isles. Men face a fine of more than U.S.$400, six months in jail, or both, if they break the law. "We find it dangerous to our future generations. This is one form of immorality in Zanzibar, it is a culture which is adopted from outside Zanzibar," executive secretary...

A UAE-led heritage project is shedding new light on the origins of Zanzibar’s Stone Town.Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an original settlement at the Unesco World Heritage site in Tanzania that dates back to the 11th century.It proves the town — previously thought to be an 18th century Omani Arab town — was actually established much earlier by local Swahili people, archaeologists believe.During a major dig this summer, they unearthed traces of homes, cooking pits and significant amounts of pottery from this era.They were then able to pinpoint the settlement’s transition to stone buildings by the 14th century...Stone Town became...

Mixing Indian, European, Arabic and Indian flavours, Zanzibar pizza embodies the islands themselves. But where does this wildly popular street food come from?"Pole pole." Slowly. Spend a few days in Tanzania and you'll hear the Swahili expression more often than you can count – when you're trying to climb Mount Kilimanjaro at a steady clip, perhaps, or anytime you need a nudge to remind you to enjoy the more languid pace of coastal life in the East African nation. In this particular instance, the words came courtesy of a food vendor at Zanzibar's Forodhani Gardens night market – a gentleman...

10 Strange Archaeological Finds Straight Out Of A Horror Story Scattered under the ground beneath our feet are the remains of history. There are little pieces of the lives of people who lived before us that give us little glimpses into who they were—the things they held dear, the homes they lived in, and the bones of their decaying bodies. But life thousands of years ago wasn’t always gentle and easy. Sometimes, when these remains are uncovered, the stories they reveal are brutal and violent—and sometimes, they’re pulled straight out of a horror story. 10 A Pit Of Amputated Arms10b-amputated-arm-bones-from-pit...

President Barack Obama toasted the founding dictator of post-colonial Tanzania on Monday, who collectivized the nation’s low-tech agricultural sector, established a one-party state and left that African nation’s economy in ruins.“[Y]ou might say an American child is my child. We might say a Tanzanian child is my child,” Obama said after quoting the Tanzanian saying “my neighbor’s child is my child.”“In this way, both of our nations will be looking after all of our children and we’ll be living out the vision of President [Julius] Nyerere,” Obama continued. “The core values that he proclaimed for Tanzania also describe what both our...

REMEMBER when you were taught that Australia was discovered by James Cook in 1770 who promptly declared it "terra nullius" and claimed it for the British throne? Turns out that could be completely and utterly wrong. Five copper coins and a nearly 70-year-old map with an "X" might lead to a discovery that could rewrite Australia's history. Australian scientist Ian McIntosh, currently Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University in the US, is planning an expedition in July that has stirred up the archaeological community. The scientist wants to revisit the location where five coins were found in the Northern Territory...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s attempt to blame western states for the rise of radical Islam in his speech to the UN General Assembly nearly backfired awkwardly when he used a racist Farsi expression—but was saved by a quick-thinking translator. During the speech on Friday, Rouhani claimed that “certain Intelligence agencies have put the blade in the hand of the drunken Zangi”—a phrase referring to irresponsible and dangerous jihadi groups, which was translated simply as “madmen” by the translator. But according to Iranian opposition blog azarmehr, the word “Zangi” is actually a derogatory term for black slaves from Zanzibar in Farsi....

Australians may need to rewrite their history textbooks. A new archaeological expedition may prove that the continent may have been discovered earlier than previously thought. Ian McIntosh, professor of anthropology at Indiana University, says he plans on visiting the location where five African coins were found in Australia’s Northern Territory in 1944 that have proven to be 1,000 years old, AAP reports. “Multiple theses have been put forward by noted scholars, and the major goal is to piece together more of the puzzle. Is a shipwreck involved? Are there more coins? All options are on the table, but only the...

Zanzibar, Tanzania (CNN) -- A Catholic priest was attacked with acid on the east African island of Zanzibar in the third such unprovoked assault in two months, and remained hospitalized Saturday, the cleric told CNN. The Rev. Joseph Anselmo Mwagambwa said he was attacked Friday afternoon while coming out of an internet cafe in Mlandenge, a community in the city of Zanzibar.

Katie Gee and friend Kirstie Trup, both 18, had the corrosive substance thrown in their faces by two men on a moped as they strolled through Stone Town, in the capital of the island, around 8pm last night One of the British teenagers attacked with acid in Zanzibar was assaulted in the street just weeks earlier for "singing during Ramadan". Katie Gee and friend Kirstie Trup, both 18, had the corrosive substance thrown in their faces by two men on a moped as they strolled through Stone Town, in the capital of the island, around 8pm last night. The girls...

Two British teenagers who were volunteering at a school were the victims of an acid attack on the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar. The police described the attack as "an isolated incident" and refused to link it to tension between majority Muslims and Christians on the island.

When rebel forces, led by Arab-speaking Muslims, seized control of the Central African Republic this March, it deepened fears that a co-ordinated Islamist insurgency could now be spreading through swathes of the continent. Four months on, the landlocked country is living through a reign of terror, largely directed against its Christian minority.“Churches have been routinely robbed and pillaged here, while Muslim mosques have been left untouched,” Mgr Cyriaque Gbate Doumalo, secretary-general of the Central African Republic’s Catholic bishops’ conference, told me in an interview. “Our public institutions aren’t functioning and our hospitals have been ransacked, leaving the sick and destitute...

It was another devastating blow for black Africa’s most powerless from the world’s most powerful black American. Like in his 2009 African visit when he visited a former European slave depot in Ghana, during his recently concluded 2013 African tour U.S. President Barack Obama again deemed that the defunct trans-Atlantic slave trade was the only past black African slavery worthy of his attention. While paying homage to the victims of the trans-Atlantic trade is obviously necessary for myriad reasons, the U.S. president failed once more not only to mention Africa’s other historical slave trade, Arab slavery, that also involved millions...

The president of Ghana is leading the charge as several African countries are making their stand against Britain’s threat that they either legalize homosexual acts or be excluded from financial aid. “I, as president of this nation will never initiate or support any attempts to legalize homosexuality in Ghana,” said President John Evans Atta Mills in an official statement to the UK government under Prime Minister David Cameron last Wednesday. Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, Australia at the end of October, which Prime Minister Cameron attended, the issue of homosexuality...

Recent events in Tunisia, Lebanon and Egypt spell a dangerous new trend in the region. There have been major developments in Tunisia, Lebanon and Egypt, each of which is of tremendous importance. In Tunisia, a popular uprising fueled by unemployment, economic suffering and long-term discontent has overthrown the dictator, but not necessarily the dictatorship. In 55 years of independence, the country has been governed by two dictators, the current one being Zine al-Abedin Ben Ali, who has been president for 23 years and was a key power in the regime even before that. Is this going to spread? Does it...

Islamists demolish foundation; police withhold crime report from court. NAIROBI, Kenya – On an island off the coast of East Africa where the local government limits the ability of Christians to obtain land, officials in one town have colluded with area Muslims to erect a mosque in place of a planned church building. On the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, Pastor Paulo Kamole Masegi of the Evangelistic Assemblies of God had purchased land in April 2007 for a church building in Mwanyanya-Mtoni, and by November of that year he had built a house that served as a temporary worship center, he...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided not to seek the death penalty against a former Guantánamo detainee who was ordered by President Obama to face trial in a civilian court in New York. Mr. Holder communicated the decision to federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Friday, and they in turn informed the federal judge who is presiding in the case. “You are authorized and directed not to seek the death penalty against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani,” Mr. Holder wrote to Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Ghailani faces federal charges of conspiring...

I do not purport to take a stance on the Obama birth certificate controversy, save to say that his refusal to release the full document is suspicious. I do take issue with falsehoods being put up in Obama's defense though. One of those falsehoods is currently being used to "debunk" the rumor that Obama was born in Mombassa, Kenya instead of Hawaii. The false claim is that Mombassa was part of Zanzibar in 1961 when Obama was born, and it is being repeated without scrutiny by the slothful mainstream media. As with so many things about Obama, this claim is...

Christians on the predominantly Muslim islands of Pemba and the Comoros archipelago faced another tense day Monday, December 8, amid fresh reports that believers have been beaten, detained and banished for their faith. off the east coast of Africa...they fear for the "the survival of Christianity on Pemba and the Comoros", with fewer than 300 Christians in a combined population of 1.1 million people. Leaving Islam for Christianity is reportedly one of the main reasons why Christians are increasingly persecuted, following the conversion in August of Sheikh Hijah Mohammed, who was leader of a key mosque in Chake-Chake, capital of...