Tanzania’s main opposition party said on Thursday at least two of its officials had been arrested on their way to a rally to support the leading government opponent Tundu Lissu, who refused to appear at a virtual court hearing to face a charge of treason.
Authorities in the east African country have increasingly cracked down on the opposition Chadema party ahead of presidential and parliamentary polls in October.
Lissu’s party was disqualified from the forthcoming elections after it refused to sign an electoral code of conduct. Lissu himself could face the death penalty over the treason charge – his most serious threat yet despite multiple arrests over the years.
Chadema has accused Tanzania’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, of returning to the repressive tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli.
“Some of our party officials have been arrested,” said the Chadema spokesperson Brenda Rupia, confirming to AFP that the party’s vice-chairperson, John Heche, and secretary general, John Mnyika, were among those detained by police.
Lissu, 57, did not appear at a virtual hearing at Kisutu magistrates court in the country’s business capital, Dar es Salaam. Chadema said he had refused as conducting the hearing virtually “goes against the principle of transparency and the defendant’s right to a fair hearing”.
Lissu has not been seen since a brief court appearance on 10 April, when he was charged with treason, which has no option of bail, and “publication of false information”. “The treason case is a path to liberation,” he said at the time.
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Outrage has grown over his detention, with hundreds of supporters gathering outside court. Amnesty International has called for his unconditional release. “Authorities are not doing justice to us. They forget that this is a country for us all,” said one supporter, Baraka Kunenga, 60.
Lissu has led a forceful charge against the government, vowing that his party would not participate in polls without significant changes to the electoral system. Chadema’s refusal to sign an electoral “code of conduct” prompted its disqualification but the party has said its ban was unconstitutional.
The president’s party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), won an overwhelming victory in local elections last year but Chadema says the vote was not free or fair since many of its candidates were disqualified.
Chadema has demanded changes to voting, including a more independent electoral commission and clearer rules to ensure candidates are not removed from ballots. Lissu said last year that Chadema would “block the elections through confrontation” unless the system was improved. Its demands have long been ignored by the ruling party.
A lawyer by training, Lissu entered parliament in 2010 and ran for president in 2020. He was shot 16 times in a 2017 attack that he says was ordered by his political opponents. After losing the 2020 election to Magufuli, he fled the country. He returned in 2023 on a wave of optimism as Hassan moved to relax some of her predecessor’s restrictions on the opposition and the media. Those hopes proved short-lived.
Rights groups and western governments are increasingly critical of renewed repression, including the arrests of Chadema politicians as well as abductions and murders of opposition figures.
In Dar es Salaam, police erected a barricade around the court in the face of criticism from many who had gathered in protest. “I cannot believe this happening in our own country,” said one Chadema supporter, Aswile Mwaisanzu, 48.
