IN SHORT: Following the 29 October 2025 election, Tanzania was rocked by violent protests. But the claim that protesters torched the home of Tulia Ackson, the speaker of parliament, is false. The photo used to support the claim was taken in 2007.
“The home of Tanzania’s Speaker of Parliament, Tulia, in Mbeya has been torched,” reads the caption of a photo posted on Facebook.
The photo shows a house engulfed in flames. Other posts claim that angry protesters stormed the house and set it on fire.
Tulia Ackson has been the speaker of the Tanzanian parliament since 2022.
Mbeya is a city in the southwest of the country.
Tanzania’s general elections took place on 29 October 2025. However, protests broke out across the country as key opposition leaders were barred from the presidential race. In response to the protests, the government imposed a curfew and internet restrictions, while police reportedly used tear gas and live ammunition to control the crowd.
The same claim and photo have also been posted here and here.
But does the photo really show Ackson’s home burning? We checked.
Photo from 2008
The post-election protests in Tanzania were reportedly marred by chaos and deaths. Foreign minister Mahmoud Thabit Kombo told the media that some government offices and vehicles were vandalised, but made no mention of any lawmaker’s home being set alight. If protesters had targeted Ackson’s home, the media would’ve covered it.
A reverse image search of the photo revealed that it first appeared on iStock, a platform for licensed photographs, on 27 August 2007.
It had the description: “This house had been badly burned earlier this year. The all volenteer [sic] fire department demolished the remains with a controlled burn in the early morning hours. I used very little filtering on this file.”
The photo circulating is from 2007. It does not show Ackson’s home burning during protests in Tanzania in October 2025.
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