Tanzania's Lissu Guilty of Incitement, Beats Treason Charge

Tundu Lissu is a convicted man — but not a traitor. A three-judge High Court panel in Dar es Salaam found Tanzania's main opposition leader guilty of incitement on Monday, while clearing him of treason, the charge that can carry the death penalty. The 58-year-old has been held since April last year.

The conviction stems from speeches Lissu gave while campaigning for electoral reforms ahead of the 2025 general election, which he and other opposition figures were shut out of. Prosecutors claimed his remarks, some circulated online, were meant to stir the public into disrupting the vote and threatening the government. Lissu, a lawyer who defended himself, argued his words were ordinary political advocacy for constitutional and electoral change — and that they were ripped out of context.

He can still take the fight to the Court of Appeal, Tanzania's highest court. Chadema's reform demands were concrete: independently appointed electoral commissioners, police that let all parties campaign without intimidation, no government-appointed district chiefs acting as returning officers, party agents allowed to watch the count, and a legal route to challenge presidential results.

The backdrop is ugly. President Samia Suluhu Hassan won the October 2025 election with 98% of the vote after Lissu and another main challenger were excluded — a result the opposition branded a mockery of democracy. Protests that followed met a violent security crackdown that killed at least 500 people, per an official inquiry, though opposition groups say the true toll was far higher and want an independent probe.

Lissu's time behind bars at Ukonga Prison has been rough: two short hunger strikes over what he said was blocked access to lawyers and relatives, plus complaints that guards eavesdropped on private consultations. Prison authorities deny it. He has spent years as one of the ruling CCM party's loudest critics — and in 2017 survived an assassination attempt when gunmen shot up his car in Dodoma, an attack never solved.

International pressure is building. Amnesty International accused the government last week of weaponising counterterrorism laws to silence critics and instil fear. Authorities did not respond to a request for comment. Samia, 66, insists the election was fair and blames foreign actors for the unrest — a claim Lissu's conviction will do little to quiet.