Lissu’s lawyer Rugemeleza Nshala stated the costs in opposition to his consumer have been politically pushed.
A court docket in Tanzania has charged opposition social gathering chief Tundu Lissu with treason after his arrest at a public rally through which he referred to as for electoral reforms.
The costs in opposition to the chairman of the Chadema social gathering will carry new scrutiny to President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s bid for re-election in October as critics accuse the federal government of cracking down on the opposition.
The opposition chief was compelled right into a police automobile late on Wednesday after he had completed addressing a public rally in Mbinga in southern Tanzania.
“I got here right here, we held a peaceable assembly and now I perceive the ways of the police. We at the moment are clear on the state of affairs. I cannot enter the automobile. There isn’t any want for that. We’ll sleep right here. What’s the downside?” Lissu requested the police, moments earlier than his supporters have been tear-gassed.
Lissu on Thursday afternoon arrived on the Kisutu Resident Justice of the Peace’s Courtroom within the industrial capital Dar-es-Salaam, showing in excessive spirits and within the firm of his legal professionals and opposition social gathering politicians.
He was, nonetheless, not allowed to enter a plea on the treason cost.
He did plead not responsible to a separate cost of publishing false info and is due again in court docket on April 24.
Lissu’s lawyer Rugemeleza Nshala stated the costs in opposition to his consumer have been politically pushed.
“You can not separate these fees from politics,” Nshala advised the Reuters information company.
“He was doing campaigns to teach Chadema supporters, however they’ve turned it into fees.”
Based on the cost sheet, Lissu, who survived being shot 16 occasions in an assassination try in 2017, made the feedback in query in Dar-es-Salaam on April 3.
The cost sheet quoted him as saying: “It’s true we are saying we are going to forestall the election. We’ll encourage insurrection. That’s the technique to get change.”
“So we’re going to spoil this election. We’re going to actually disrupt. … We’re going to spoil it very badly,” the cost sheet accused him of claiming.
Hassan received plaudits after coming to energy in 2021 for relieving repression of political opponents and censorship of the media that proliferated beneath her predecessor John Magufuli, who died in workplace.
However she has confronted mounting criticism from human rights activists over a sequence of arrests and unexplained abductions and killings of political opponents.
Hassan has stated the federal government is dedicated to respecting human rights, and she or he ordered an investigation into reported abductions final 12 months.
