What is with this love for treason and terrorism as preferred charges?
Tanzanian opposition leader and Chadema national chairman Tundu Lissu arrives for his treason trial at the High Court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, February 9, 2026.
Tanzanians are getting used to the strange accusations levelled at anyone who differs with the government on anything at all. There is a pattern that is becoming eerily familiar of people being charged with two main offences, “Treason” and “Terrorism.”
This phenomenon did not appear after the October 29 flare-up last year, when what had been planned as an election turned into an orgy of looting and killing; even before that dark episode in the history of the nation, the state had already shown a certain preference for those two charges.
