Tanzania Convicted Tundu Lissu of a Crime He Was Never Charged With

Read that sentence again. A man stood trial for treason, a crime that carries the death penalty. The court said he was not guilty of treason. Then it convicted him of incitement, a charge that was never in the case, and sentenced him to four years in prison. Nobody charged him with it. Nobody defended against it. The judges invented it, and they did it to a man who has already spent 19 months behind bars.

Tundu Lissu, the head of Tanzania's main opposition party, Chadema, has now been jailed for the crime of being the most visible threat to a government that does not want to be challenged. We are told this is a court of law. We should ask what kind of law can manufacture a conviction out of thin air and still call itself independent.

Tanzania was once the africa we pointed to with pride. For decades it was the continent's quiet example of stability, a country that held elections, passed power between leaders, and avoided the coups and civil wars that tore through its neighbours. That reputation is now in ruins. The government of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who took office in 2021 after the death of John Magufuli, promised reform, openness, and reconciliation. What Tanzanians got instead is a state that arrests its opponents, shuts down dissent, and then asks the courts to finish the job.

Consider what happened in the run-up to the October 2025 election. Lissu was arrested in April 2025 and charged with treason over remarks calling for electoral reform before any vote could be held. His message was simple: no reform, no election. For saying that out loud, the state put him in a cell. When Tanzanians took to the streets to demand fair elections and an end to the repression, the response was brutal. Opposition figures and rights groups say hundreds of protesters were killed, and that the internet was cut off as the bodies piled up. Independent verification remains limited precisely because the state has worked so hard to limit it. When a government fears its own citizens enough to shut off their access to the outside world, the question is no longer whether it has something to hide. The question is how much.

This is the pattern we keep seeing across our continent. Opposition leaders are charged with crimes that sound serious and prove nothing. Judges who should be the last line of defence become the first instrument of control. The rule of law is reduced to a rubber stamp for whoever holds the state. Lissu himself knows this. He has been shot, more than a dozen times in 2017 in an assassination attempt in Dodoma, and he has survived exile and prison. He said the judges convicted him "just to impress the person who gives you the titles." That is not the rant of a man who has lost his grip. It is a description of a system that has lost its spine.

And let us be honest about who else is watching. Tanzania sits at the centre of China's Belt and Road ambitions, where Beijing is financing the revival of the TAZARA railway linking Dar es Salaam to Zambia's copper belt. Western donors and governments, who love to lecture Africa about democracy at summits and in communiqués, have spent years quietly prioritising gas deals, trade, and security cooperation over the basic freedoms of Tanzanians. China does not ask about judicial independence before it lends. Europe and North America rarely ask loudly enough. When the loans, the infrastructure contracts, and the partnership photographs keep flowing, the message to Dar es Salaam is clear: the cost of repression is low as long as the money keeps moving. Lissu's imprisonment is not only a Tanzanian crisis. It is a test of whether anyone with leverage is willing to use it.

So what must change? First, Tanzania's judiciary must be restored as an independent institution. That means judges who are appointed through transparent, merit-based processes, protected from executive pressure, and answerable to the constitution rather than to a president's favour. Courts that convict people of charges they never faced are not courts at all. The Tanzanian Judiciary and the Judicial Service Commission should publish their reasoning, and the Bar Association should have the courage to say so when judges abandon the law.

Second, the region must stop pretending this is an internal affair. The East African Community and the Southern African Development Community have a duty to speak clearly about political prisoners in their member states. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, which Tanzania has ratified instruments under, should review Lissu's case and demand his release. The African Union cannot keep issuing statements about democracy while its members jail the men who would win free elections.

Third, the Tanzanian private sector has a stake here that it should not ignore. Investors want predictable courts, property rights that hold, and contracts enforced without political interference. A country that jails opposition leaders on invented charges is a country where every business deal carries a political risk premium. Business associations, chambers of commerce, and the investors who fund Tanzania's growth should say plainly that stability without accountability is not stability. It is a loan that will eventually be called in.

Africa already has proof that a better path exists. Botswana built one of the continent's most respected democracies on the back of independent courts, consistent peaceful transfers of power, and a commitment to fiscal discipline and property rights. Mauritius has held competitive elections for decades while building a diversified economy that outperforms many of its peers. Senegal showed in 2024 that citizens who refuse to accept a stolen election can force a democratic transition, when courts and institutions held firm under pressure. Ghana has shown the same thing through its peaceful alternations of power. None of these countries is perfect. All of them prove the principle that Tanzania is abandoning: strong institutions outlast strong men.

So here is what we demand. Release Tundu Lissu now, and quash a conviction built on a charge he never faced. Launch an independent inquiry into the killings and internet shutdowns of late 2025, with international observers and published findings. Guarantee that opposition parties can campaign, organise, and speak without fear of arrest. Ask every donor and investor in Tanzania to make their support conditional on judicial independence, not on silence.

And to the people of Tanzania, we say this: the courts belong to you. The constitution belongs to you. When a judge convicts a man of a crime he was never charged with, it is not just Lissu who has been wronged. It is every citizen who was told that the law would protect them. Speak. Organise. Demand transparency in every courtroom and every ballot box. Because if we let this stand quietly, we will wake up one day and find that our democracy was never a democracy at all, just a performance we were too tired to question.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL