Lawyers for a Tanzanian politician request that the UN declare his incarceration to be arbitrary

To increase international pressure for the release of Tanzania’s imprisoned opposition leader Tundu Lissu, his attorneys filed a complaint against him with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on Friday.

Lissu, the leader of Tanzania’s major opposition party and the country’s runner-up in the 2020 presidential election, was detained last month and charged with treason, a capital offense, for allegedly urging followers to stop the country’s October national elections.

A request for comment was not immediately answered by Tanzania’s government spokesperson.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan has received praise for reducing political repression, but in recent months, she has been questioned regarding the mysterious kidnappings of government dissidents.

Hassan, who plans to run for reelection in October, has declared that her administration upholds human rights and has mandated an inquiry into the alleged kidnappings.

Robert Amsterdam, Lissu’s international attorney, claimed that the private complaint was a component of a larger pressure campaign directed at the U.N. working committee, which renders opinions but has enforcement authority.

Amsterdam said he would ask the U.S. State Department to impose penalties if the European Parliament this month passed a resolution condemning Lissu’s imprisonment as politically motivated.

“Right down to prosecutors, judges, police – all the people that are involved in this false show trial had better be aware that they should protect their U.S. assets,” Amsterdam stated to Reuters.

Tanzania’s foreign ministry responded to the resolution of the European Parliament by claiming that external critiques of the case were founded on “incomplete or partisan information”.

A request for comment was not immediately answered by the U.S. State Department.

Lissu will appear in court on Monday after being shot sixteen times in an attack in 2017 for which no one has ever been charged.

A Kenyan and a Ugandan rights activist who had arrived to the hearing were arrested by officials before to his appearance in court last week.

Boniface Mwangi, a Kenyan activist, claimed that both of them suffered severe torture while in detention after being abandoned a few days later close to their home nations’ borders.

Requests for comment about the allegation have not received a response from Tanzanian officials. External parties are discouraged from “invading and interfering in our affairs” by Hassan.