By Lucy Adautin
On Saturday,Tanzania’s main opposition party said that its leader, Tundu Lissu, who has been detained and charged with treason, had been transferred to a different prison. This announcement comes a day after the party claimed his whereabouts were unknown.
The charges against Lissu have drawn renewed scrutiny to President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s human rights record as she prepares for re-election in late October. Hassan has frequently stated that her government is committed to upholding human rights and good governance.
A spokesperson for Lissu’s CHADEMA party said that the party’s leaders had met with officials from the Tanzania Prisons Service and been informed of the transfer. “CHADEMA would like to inform the public… Lissu has been transferred to Ukonga Prison,” party spokesperson Brenda Rupia said in a statement.
The Tanzania Prisons Service spokesperson, Elizabeth Mbezi, did not respond to calls and text messages requesting comment. Gerson Msigwa, the government spokesperson, said that once a person is charged, any comments related to their case are the responsibility of the authorities in charge of the case.
On Friday, CHADEMA had stated that party officials, Lissu’s lawyers, and family members had tried unsuccessfully to gain access to him at a jail in the capital, Dar es Salaam, where he had been held since 10 April. Rupia later told reporters that the party had not been informed of the reason for Lissu’s transfer to the new prison.
Lissu, the runner-up in the country’s 2020 presidential election, was charged with treason last week over a speech that prosecutors alleged called on the public to rebel and disrupt the election due later this year. He was not permitted to enter a plea on the treason charge.
Last weekend, the election commission said CHADEMA would be disqualified from the election due to its refusal to sign a code of conduct, as it demands electoral reforms.
Hassan earned accolades after coming to power in 2021 for relaxing the repression of political opponents and censorship of the media that took root under her predecessor, John Magufuli, who died in office. However, she has received mounting criticism from human rights activists over a series of arrests and unexplained abductions and killings of political opponents.
