International Parliamentary Union opens enquiry into Lissu case assassination attempt

Dar es Salaam. The Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has written to Parliament Speaker Job Ndugai enquiring on the steps the law-making body has taken to investigate an assassination attempt on former Singida East MP Tundu Lissu.

The global organisation of national parliaments wants Mr Ndugai to explain what measures the House took to ensure that Mr Lissu received “the necessary financial and logistical assistance for his full medical recovery and facilitate his safe return to Tanzania,” a statement posted on the organisation’s website reads.

However, when asked about the letter yesterday, Mr Ndugai said that he hasn’t seen it and went ahead to doubt IPU’s investigative mandate.

He said: “I haven’t seen the letter. I’ll clarify when I see it. What is important now is to understand that IPU is not an investigative organ. How come now IPU wants to interfere with a country’s internal affairs?”

The IPU’s letter to Mr Ndugai, which was sent last week, follows a decision taken by Mr Lissu, who was also recently elected as Chadema’s Vice Chairman, to file complaints to the organisation that promotes peace through parliamentary diplomacy and dialogue on November 2019.

He alleged that the Parliament did not do enough in the subsequent days after he escaped an assassination attempt.

On September 7, 2017, attackers said to be armed with AK-47s sprayed Mr Lissu’s vehicle with more than 35 bullets outside his house in the capital Dodoma and was hit 16 times.

Mr Lissu has undergone 24 surgical operations in Kenya and Belgium, and though he has now been declared sufficiently well enough to return home, he has declined to do so without a State approval to protect him against the would be assassins.

In June 2019, Mr Lissu was stripped of his parliamentary mandate over what Mr Ndugai said was the former opposition chief whip absenteeism and reportedly failing to file wealth declaration forms with the National Assembly.

“The National Assembly of Tanzania has a vested interest in seeing to it that justice is fully rendered and that Mr Lissu’s physical integrity is protected, all the more so given that it concerns in this case an attack on the life of the then chief whip of the official opposition,” reads in part the UPI’s statement posted on its website.

The statement was a result of the UPI’s Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians’ meeting which sat in Geneva, Switzerland, and outlines the decisions agreed during that meeting which took place between January 20 and 30.

The IPU nevertheless acknowledges the immediate steps that Parliament took to take Mr Lissu to safety and facilitate his medical treatment after the shooting.

Still, it “wishes to receive the observations from the parliamentary authorities on the reasons and grounds for revoking [Mr Lissu’s] parliamentary seat.”

Among the human rights violations that Mr Lissu submitted to the committee include threats and acts of intimidation; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of due process in proceedings against parliamentarians; violation of freedom of opinion and expression; violation of freedom of assembly and association; and abusive revocation or suspension of the parliamentary mandate.

In its report, the global body shows decisions it made on matters brought before its attention and which touch various countries around the world.