Kenyan journalist and human rights activist Boniface Mwangi (R) and Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire (L) throughout a joint press convention in Nairobi on June 2, 2025 following their three-day detention and alleged torture by Tanzanian authorities.
Tony Karumba/AFP through Getty Photos
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Tony Karumba/AFP through Getty Photos
JOHANNESBURG —At a packed press convention this week two East African activists wiped away tears as they detailed their alleged sexual assault and torture whereas in detention in Tanzania.
Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi and Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire – who was given an “Worldwide Girl of Braveness” award by the US State Division final yr – mentioned they’d traveled to neighboring Tanzania in mid-Might to watch the “sham” court docket case of an opposition chief there.
They allege they have been each subsequently detained by a state safety official and males in plain garments. Mwangi described in graphic element how he was stripped bare, hung the other way up from a metallic pole and sexually assaulted with a lot of objects.
He says whereas this was happening his was made to shout phrases praising Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan — the nation’s first feminine president who is anticipated to hunt re-election in October.
“The ache lower so deep that l could not even cry, however screamed in excruciating ache,” Mwangi instructed the press convention.
His colleague Atuhaire was taken into the completely different room and raped.
The 2 activists have been finally dumped close to the border.
Tanzanian police have rejected the activists’ account. The US Division of State‘s Bureau of Africa Affairs has expressed concern over the activists’ alleged therapy.
Treason Trial
The trial Mwangi and Atuhaire had gone to Tanzania to attend a court docket listening to of Tanzanian opposition chief Tundu Lissu, chief of the CHADEMA occasion.
Lissu — who survived being shot 16 instances in a 2017 assassination try — was arrested in April on treason fees.
His arrest comes forward of Tanzania’s basic elections scheduled for October. CHADEMA is already barred from contesting the polls and Lissu had been holding rallies across the nation earlier than his arrest underneath the slogan: “No reforms, no elections.”
His American lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, instructed NPR in an interview that the opposition chief faces the loss of life penalty if convicted of treason. He mentioned the fees have been “utterly bogus.”
“The explanation they’ve charged him with treason is that its non-bailable, and it is a widespread ploy in Tanzanian election politics, to instrumentalize the courts to bar your opponents,” the lawyer mentioned.
“We demean the ideas of courts and justice after we speak concerning the type of trials which are occurring in East Africa,” added Amsterdam, who has additionally represented Ugandan popstar-turned-opposition chief Bobi Wine.
Requested if the activists who’d gone to assist Lissu would carry instances of their very own, Amsterdam mentioned he can be chatting with Mwangi about that risk.
The Bulldozer and the ‘Reformist’
When Tanzanian President Hassan succeeded authoritarian chief John Magufuli in 2021, she ushered in a lot of reforms, together with ending bans on political rallies, repealing repressive legal guidelines across the media, and releasing Lissu’s CHADEMA predecessor from jail.
After the oppressive rule of Magufuli — who was nicknamed “the Bulldozer” — many Tanzanians have been hopeful the nation was on a extra democratic path. However forward of native elections final November, analysts say Hassan’s authorities began its personal crackdown.
CHADEMA official Ali Kibao was kidnapped and murdered in September, and lots of of the occasion’s officers have been detained forward of a deliberate rally.
Amnesty Worldwide is among the many rights teams which have condemned the crackdown on the opposition.
“The authorities’ marketing campaign of repression noticed 4 authorities critics forcibly disappeared, and one unlawfully killed in 2024,” the human rights watchdog mentioned.
“The police have additionally prevented opposition members from holding conferences and different political gatherings, subjecting them to mass arrest, arbitrary detention and illegal use of pressure.”
