Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Leading Kenyan lawyer and the former Minister of Justice of the Land, Martha Karua, says that she was held in Tanzania after flying before the court performance of opposition leader Tundu Lissu.
Karua said in a social media post that she had been held at the most important international airport and waited for deportation, together with two colleagues who had followed with her. Tanzanian authorities have not yet commented.
Tanzanian politician Lissu will appear in court on Monday after he is accused of betrayal last month.
Karua is a respected lawyer for human rights and a vocal critic of what she calls “democratic relapse” in East Africa.
She also represents the Ugandan opposition politician Kizza Besigye, who was kidnapped in Kenya last year and taken back to his home country to hire betrayal.
Just like Lissu, he denies the charges and claims that they are politically motivated.
Karua served as Minister of Justice of Kenya from 2005 to 2009 and was the running measure of former Prime Minister Raila Odigna in his failed presidential bid in elections in 2022.
She launched her own opposition party, the liberation party of the people, earlier this year.
The Karua spokesperson told AFP News Agency that she was questioned for three hours at the airport in the most important city of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, and her passport was seized.
Karua said she was now awaiting deportation, together with colleague Kenyan lawyer Gloria Kimani and human rights campaigner Lynn Ngugi.
The Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition condemned what it called the “random arrest” of the three and said it had instructed his lawyers to guarantee their release.
It added that it was shocked by the arrests, because Karua Tanzania was allowed to observe procedures when Lissu appeared in court on 15 April.
Human rights groups are increasingly concerned about a performance against the opposition in Tanzania prior to presidential and parliamentary elections in October.
Lissu, the leader of the most important opposition Chadema party, cannot seek a bail because he has been accused of betrayal, a crime for which the maximum punishment is death.
He survived a murder attack in 2017 after he had been shot 16 times.
The opposition leader was arrested in April after he had held a rally under the slogan “No reforms, no election”.
He demands radical changes and says that the current laws of Tanzania do not allow free and honest elections. The government denies the statement.
Since his arrest, his Chadema party has been excluded from disputing the survey of October after it refused to meet the requirement of the electoral committee to sign a code of conduct.
The document requires that parties and their supporters “behave well” and “maintain peace and harmony” during the elections.
Chadema sees the code of conduct as a trick to contain the opposition and to continue for the repression of the state.
The CCM party, which has ruled Tanzania since 1977, is expected to retain power after the latest developments.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to be the presidential candidate.
She was widely praised because she gave Tanzanians more political freedom when she took office in 2021 after the death of the sitting, John Magufuli.
Her critics say that Tanzania again sees the repression that characterized the rule of Magufuli. The government denies the statement.
