By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The whereabouts of Tanzania’s main opposition leader, Tundu Lissu, could not be established after he was moved from a jail where he was being held following his arrest on treason charges last week, his party said on Friday.
Senior officials of his CHADEMA party, his lawyers, and family members said they tried unsuccessfully on different occasions on Friday to get access to him at a jail in the capital, Dar es Salaam, where he has been held since April 9.
“CHADEMA would like the Prisons Service and concerned government agencies to give information on where Lissu has been taken,” the party said in a statement.
Lissu, who was runner-up in the country’s 2020 presidential election, was charged with treason last week.
This was in connection with what prosecutors said was a speech calling on the public to launch a rebellion and disrupt the upcoming election. He was not allowed to enter a plea on the treason charge.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been criticised over her human rights record as she seeks re-election in October.
She has been accused of using state power to clamp down on the opposition, an allegation she denies.
The East African country’s electoral commission had last week disqualified the opposition CHADEMA from presenting a candidate in the October polls over its refusal to sign a code of conduct, as it demands electoral reforms.
The President was, however, commended in 2021 when she came to power and eased repression of political opponents and censorship of the media, put in place by her predecessor, John Magufuli, who died in office.
But she has faced mounting criticism from human rights activists over a series of arrests, and unexplained abductions and killings of political opponents.
Hassan has said the government is committed to respecting human rights, and she ordered an investigation into reported abductions last year.
