Jailed Tanzanian opposition leader begins hunger strike

Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who was charged with treason last year, has started a hunger strike to protest his inability to access his lawyers, his party said.

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Lissu, who leads the CHADEMA opposition party and came second in the 2020 presidential election, began refusing food on Monday after his lawyers were denied entry to the prison where he is being held, party spokesperson Brenda Rupia wrote on X.

Tanzania Prisons Service spokesperson Elizabeth Mbezi said it would give an update on Lissu soon. Government spokesperson Gerson Msigwa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lissu was charged with treason over what prosecutors said was a speech calling on the public to rebel and disrupt last year's general election. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, which his lawyer has said are politically motivated.

Tanzania's electoral commission had barred CHADEMA from participating in the polls after it failed to sign a code of conduct document.

The election was marred by protests and unrest, with a government-appointed commission of inquiry saying the violence that broke out afterwards killed at least 518 people and blaming the protesters for the violence.

CHADEMA's chief legal counsel, Rugemeleza Nshala, told journalists on Saturday that Lissu had planned the strike because he was denied privacy during talks with his lawyers in violation of a court order.

The court is due to deliver its judgement in Lissu's case on November 6.

Lissu's detention, along with the alleged abductions of government critics, has shone a spotlight on the human rights record of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who won the 2025 election.

The government has rejected accusations of widespread rights abuses and said it is committed to respecting human rights. It ordered an investigation into reports of abductions in 2024, though no official findings have been made public.

(Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Joe Bavier)

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