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