Latest news with #TunduLissu
Reuters
a day ago
- General
- Reuters
Tanzania deports foreign activists supporting detained opposition leader
Tanzania's main opposition leader Tundu Lissu told his supporters to have no fear as he appeared in court on Monday on charges including treason, as President Samia Suluhu Hassan warned foreign rights activists against interference. David Doyle reports.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Tanzanian politician's lawyers ask UN to declare his detention arbitrary
Lawyers for Tanzania's jailed opposition leader Tundu Lissu filed a complaint on Friday to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in a bid to ramp up international pressure for his release. Lissu, chairman of Tanzania's main opposition party and runner-up in the 2020 presidential election, was arrested last month and charged with treason, a capital offence, over comments he is alleged to have made calling on supporters to prevent national elections in October from going ahead. Tanzania's government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. While President Samia Suluhu Hassan has won plaudits for easing political repression, she has faced questions about unexplained abductions of government critics in recent months. Hassan, who will stand for re-election in October, has said her government respects human rights and ordered an investigation into the reported abductions. Lissu's international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said the confidential complaint to the UN working group, which issues opinions but has no enforcement power, was part of a wider pressure campaign. The European Parliament this month adopted a resolution denouncing Lissu's arrest as politically motivated, and Amsterdam said he would petition the US State Department to impose sanctions. "Right down to prosecutors, judges, police - all the people that are involved in this false show trial had better be aware that they should protect their US assets," Amsterdam told Reuters. Read more on RFI EnglishRead also:Kenya slammed as 'rogue state' over Ugandan opposition leader kidnapKenyan politician, lawyer for Tanzania opposition leader arrestedTension high in Tanzania ahead of opposition leader's 'treason' trial
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
Tanzanian politician's lawyers ask UN to declare his detention arbitrary
Tanzanian opposition leader and former presidential candidate of CHADEMA party Tundu Lissu waves to his supporters as he arrives at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate Court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania May 19, 2025. REUTERS/Emmanuel Herman/File Photo NAIROBI - Lawyers for Tanzania's jailed opposition leader Tundu Lissu filed a complaint on Friday to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in a bid to ramp up international pressure for his release. Lissu, chairman of Tanzania's main opposition party and runner-up in the 2020 presidential election, was arrested last month and charged with treason, a capital offence, over comments he is alleged to have made calling on supporters to prevent national elections in October from going ahead. Tanzania's government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. While President Samia Suluhu Hassan has won plaudits for easing political repression, she has faced questions about unexplained abductions of government critics in recent months. Hassan, who will stand for re-election in October, has said her government respects human rights and ordered an investigation into the reported abductions. Lissu's international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said the confidential complaint to the U.N. working group, which issues opinions but has no enforcement power, was part of a wider pressure campaign. The European Parliament this month adopted a resolution denouncing Lissu's arrest as politically motivated, and Amsterdam said he would petition the U.S. State Department to impose sanctions. "Right down to prosecutors, judges, police - all the people that are involved in this false show trial had better be aware that they should protect their U.S. assets," Amsterdam told Reuters. In response to the European Parliament resolution, Tanzania's foreign ministry said outside criticisms about the case were based on "incomplete or partisan information". The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lissu, who was shot 16 times in a 2017 attack for which no one has ever been charged, will appear in court on Monday. Before he appeared in court last week, authorities detained a Kenyan and a Ugandan rights activist who had come to attend the hearing. They were abandoned several days later near the borders of their home countries, and the Kenyan activist, Boniface Mwangi, said both were badly tortured while in custody. Tanzanian officials have not responded to requests for comment about the allegation. Hassan has warned outsiders against "invading and interfering in our affairs". REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
The Star
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Star
Tanzanian politician's lawyers ask UN to declare his detention arbitrary
Tanzanian opposition leader and former presidential candidate of CHADEMA party Tundu Lissu waves to his supporters as he arrives at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate Court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania May 19, 2025. REUTERS/Emmanuel Herman/File Photo NAIROBI (Reuters) -Lawyers for Tanzania's jailed opposition leader Tundu Lissu filed a complaint on Friday to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in a bid to ramp up international pressure for his release. Lissu, chairman of Tanzania's main opposition party and runner-up in the 2020 presidential election, was arrested last month and charged with treason, a capital offence, over comments he is alleged to have made calling on supporters to prevent national elections in October from going ahead. Tanzania's government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. While President Samia Suluhu Hassan has won plaudits for easing political repression, she has faced questions about unexplained abductions of government critics in recent months. Hassan, who will stand for re-election in October, has said her government respects human rights and ordered an investigation into the reported abductions. Lissu's international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said the confidential complaint to the U.N. working group, which issues opinions but has no enforcement power, was part of a wider pressure campaign. The European Parliament this month adopted a resolution denouncing Lissu's arrest as politically motivated, and Amsterdam said he would petition the U.S. State Department to impose sanctions. "Right down to prosecutors, judges, police - all the people that are involved in this false show trial had better be aware that they should protect their U.S. assets," Amsterdam told Reuters. In response to the European Parliament resolution, Tanzania's foreign ministry said outside criticisms about the case were based on "incomplete or partisan information". The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lissu, who was shot 16 times in a 2017 attack for which no one has ever been charged, will appear in court on Monday. Before he appeared in court last week, authorities detained a Kenyan and a Ugandan rights activist who had come to attend the hearing. They were abandoned several days later near the borders of their home countries, and the Kenyan activist, Boniface Mwangi, said both were badly tortured while in custody. Tanzanian officials have not responded to requests for comment about the allegation. Hassan has warned outsiders against "invading and interfering in our affairs". (Reporting by Aaron Ross; editing by Giles Elgood)
Al Jazeera
7 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Democracy in East Africa is retreating. Here is how it can be saved
Last week, Ugandan lawyer Agather Atuhaire was finally set free five days after she was detained by the Tanzanian police for unclear reasons. She was unceremoniously dumped at the Mutukula border crossing between the two countries. Details of Atuhaire's condition remain unclear, but a statement from the organisation she works with as well as Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi, who was detained with her, alleged that she was tortured. He himself showed signs of physical abuse after he was also dumped at the Kenya-Tanzania border a day earlier. For East Africans, Atuhaire and Mwangi's ordeal has been a painful reminder of just how far democracy in the region has retreated. People organising to resist state excesses have been increasingly facing structural and physical violence with little space for redress. Mwangi and Atuhaire were among a small group of regional activists and political figures who flew into Tanzania to show solidarity with Tundu Lissu, the leader of the Tanzanian opposition. Lissu is facing several charges, the most grievous among them treason, for comments he allegedly made at a political rally. But Lissu is not alone in the region in facing reprisals for political action. In neighbouring Uganda, leader of the opposition Kizza Besigye is facing the same charges, based on the same idea that organising and leading opposition against an entrenched political power amounts to treason. Meanwhile, in Kenya, the aftermath of the 2024 anti-finance bill protests is haunting the country. In the absence of a well organised political opposition, which is stymied by frenetic deal-making and horse-trading, protesters and youth activists have become the country's unofficial political opposition. The youth have borne the brunt of political violence during last year's protests, which killed at least 82 people. Kidnappings and abductions of protesters spiked after the demonstrations, and activist groups alleged that some people remain unaccounted for despite President William Ruto's assertion to the contrary. In Burundi, people continue to live under the shadow of police excesses and in fear of the possibility of war with its expansionist neighbours. In Rwanda, several opposition figures who tried to run against President Paul Kagame were jailed on various charges. The neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo is perennially caught between war and political crisis. So how did we get to this state of affairs? The simplest answer is that we allowed ourselves to conflate elections with democracy, and the malicious intentions of those who wield power took advantage of that faith. The reality of building robust democratic systems is far more complicated than lining up to vote every four or five years, and real democracy requires round the clock vigilance. A meaningful democracy requires robust local government, transparent political parties as well as institutional accountability and participation, all of which have been on the retreat in the region in the past two decades. Power has remained highly centralised in the executive, enabled by the capitulation of legislatures and the 'naomba serekali' ('I am requesting of the government') approach to politics. Parliaments are empowered by the legitimacy of a popular vote, but they repeatedly submit to the executive. Proof of this can be easily found in the experience of women trying to run for office in the region. As outlined in a 2018 volume on the Kenyan election that I co-edited, Where Women Are: Gender and the 2017 Kenyan General Election, the weakness begins within political parties, in which candidates must kowtow to a kingpin to gain permission to appear on the ballot. Those who do not are often locked out from competitive electoral cycles. As a result, save for constitutional quotas, women's participation in electoral politics has declined – a canary in the coalmine of shrinking democratic space. Meanwhile, parties have mastered the art of managing gender optics as a substitute for real change, reducing debates about democracy to the periodic performance of voting. Thus, Samia Suluhu's presidency in Tanzania is not a sign of improving democracy but rather that of a political machine that picked the least contentious candidate who would allow the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, to continue managing the country. Similarly, the dominance of women in Rwanda's parliament is not in itself indicative of progress for women but of the ability of the ruling party to select candidates who are less likely to push back. Once these candidates are laundered through the political party machine, they enter the legislature more beholden to their political kingpin than to voters. And this is the case whether the kingpin is in government or in the opposition. In Kenya, opposition candidates like Edwin Sifuna, who vociferously defended the rights of protesters during the June 2024 protests, have become tongue-tied in 2025 because their party kingpin has since struck a deal with Ruto and blind obeisance is the only guaranteed pathway to power in this system. In Uganda, politicians are bought off with state cars and loans, and in Tanzania, they are silenced by arrests, detentions and disappearances of critics of the state. The net effect is that elections become a performance whose actual impact diminishes rapidly over time. A quick scan of global politics will affirm that this is not a uniquely East African problem. The same crisis is taking shape in the United States, particularly after the evisceration of the Republican Party by Tea Party politics and of the Democratic Party by careerist politicians. But the events of the last week show that for East Africa, an extra layer of risk exists because of the unquestioning and blind loyalty of security services to the whims of the state – something the current US administration seeks to build into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The long-term solution to this state of affairs is for ordinary people to become more engaged in localised democratic practices, changing the quality of people who rise up the ranks in politics. Of course, this can be difficult when people are merely trying to survive a hostile political and economic climate, but in the long term, it creates new entry points for civic engagement. Democracy is strengthened when more people participate in the governance of civic institutions like schools, hospitals, trade unions, cooperatives, neighbourhood associations, and even sports and social clubs – in processes that they can immediately connect to their quality of life. Elections then become the culmination of four or five years of regular exercises of democracy, not a separate process that floats above the reality of people's lives. In parallel, the onus is on the legislators of East Africa to find their teeth and their purpose. Their job is not political survival or the pursuit of political careers. Their job is to defend the people who elected them, to rein in the excesses of the executive and to defend the integrity of the constitution. Meanwhile, we, the people, should all heed the call of Nigerian public intellectual Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem: 'Don't agonise, organise,' and seek to rebuild democracy in East Africa from the ground up. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
