LISSU’S LAWYER REPORTS END OF HUNGER STRIKE

Tanzania’s jailed opposition leader Tundu Lissu ended a brief hunger strike after prison authorities allowed a private meeting, his lawyer Rugemeleza Nshala said on Tuesday. Nshala said Lissu had sought confidential meetings with his lawyers under a court order. Prison authorities promised him private access on Monday, prompting him to delay a planned refusal of food, Nshala said. When the meetings did not take place, Lissu began refusing food on Tuesday morning, according to Nshala. “Lissu did not take his tea, breakfast or lunch,” Nshala said.

Brenda Rupia, a spokesperson for Lissu’s party, CHADEMA, said on X that the strike began on Monday after prison staff turned away his lawyers. Tanzania’s prisons service disputed that a strike took place and said Lissu was safe. Accounts also differ on whether the private meeting that ended the protest involved Lissu’s younger brother or his lawyers. Lissu leads CHADEMA, Tanzania’s main opposition party, and came second in the 2020 presidential election. A court has scheduled a final judgment in his treason case for 6 November; the charge carries a possible death sentence.

Nshala said guards had at times blocked access to Lissu entirely, and raised concern about his health because he relies on medication. Lissu survived a 2017 assassination attempt in which he was shot 16 times. His detention and allegations that government critics have been abducted have prompted scrutiny of President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s human rights record. The Tanzanian government rejects accusations of widespread abuses and says it is committed to respecting human rights. It ordered an investigation into reported abductions in 2024, but has published no official findings.