Freeman Mbowe has been sitting in a maximum security prison in Tanzania's economic metropolis Dar es Salaam for more than six weeks.

Police arrested the opposition leader in a night raid in Mwanza on Lake Victoria, 1,000 kilometers from Dar es Salaam.

It is not the 59-year-old politician's first arrest, but it is the first time that he is on trial on terrorism charges.

A release on bail is not possible on this charge.

Claudia Bröll

Freelance Africa correspondent based in Cape Town.

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Arrests and brutal attacks on opposition politicians had increased at a terrifying rate in Tanzania during the five-and-a-half-year term in office of President John Magufuli, who died in March.

In September 2017, an assassination attempt on the well-known opposition politician Tundu Lissu caused a particular stir.

Two attackers shot him sixteen times.

Miraculously, he survived.

Lissu later went into exile in Belgium.

When the previous Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan took over the leadership after Magufuli's surprising death, many hoped for a change in the East African country, which from 1885 to 1918 belonged in part to the German East Africa colony.

The devout Muslim woman and mother of four appears quieter than the “bulldozer”, as her predecessor was called.

She also proposes a more binding tone towards business representatives and neighboring countries.

Her U-turn in Corona policy caused the greatest sensation.

Since July, Tanzania has been reporting infection numbers again after a 14-month break.

Vaccines have now arrived.

The current incumbent as "hostage of the system"

Magufuli was the only state leader in Africa to flatly deny the pandemic. With conviction he had announced that prayers had driven the virus from his country. He advised sick people to take herbal cures and steam baths. There are many indications that Magufuli himself died as a result of a corona infection in the end. Previously, the hospitals were overwhelmed by the rush of patients with alleged pneumonia. Reports of clandestine funerals at night increased.

However, a decisive departure from the authoritarian style of government of the “bulldozer” is not discernible under Suluhu Hassan. The pictures of the Mbowe case in particular brought back memories of times gone by: Once again, an opposition leader was led like a criminal from a police vehicle into a court. The officers around him don't even wear corona face masks, just himself.

Tundu Lissu, who has already undergone 25 operations because of the serious injuries, is watching what is happening from a distance with great concern. He sees parallels to the time when the attack occurred, says the opposition politician of the FAZ on the phone. "Magufuli may be dead and buried, but Magufulism is still alive and well." The current president is a "hostage of the system that was modeled on John Pombe Magufuli".