Kenyan and Ugandan activists say they were sexually assaulted in Tanzania
Spokespeople for Tanzania's government, foreign affairs ministry and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the allegations by Kenya's Boniface Mwangi and Uganda's Agather Atuhaire.
The spokesperson for Kenya's ministry of foreign affairs and Uganda's information minister did not respond to calls seeking comment.
Mwangi and Atuhaire were detained after arriving in Dar es Salaam to attend the first court appearance of Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who faces treason charges.
Tanzanian authorities have not commented on Mwangi and Atuhaire's detentions, though in public remarks on May 19, the day they were detained, President Samia Suluhu Hassan warned foreign activists against "invading and interfering in our affairs."
After being taken into custody at their hotel in Dar es Salaam, Mwangi said they were blindfolded by police officers and taken to a house. He said that while questioning him about the whereabouts of his phone and laptop, his interrogators stripped him, blindfolded him and sexually assaulted him.
He cried as he described his ordeal at a press conference in Kenya's capital Nairobi, adding that the security personnel had also photographed him while assaulting him.
Atuhaire said she too had been blindfolded, tied up and similarly assaulted.
Both activists were eventually dumped near the borders of their countries, where they crossed back home.
Lissu, who came second in Tanzania's last presidential poll, was arrested in April and charged with treason over what prosecutors said was a speech calling on the public to rebel and disrupt elections due in October.
The case has highlighted a growing crackdown on opponents of Hassan, whose party has nominated her to stand in the October vote.
She won plaudits after coming to power in 2021 for easing the political repression that had proliferated under her predecessor, but has faced mounting criticism over a series of arrests and unexplained abductions of political opponents.
Hassan has said the government is committed to respecting human rights, and ordered an investigation into reported abductions last year.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
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Daily Mail
7 hours ago
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In May, she also shared an animation condemning Israel's treatment of civilians in Gaza, which showed a woman holding a bowl that read 'it's not a hunger crisis... it is deliberate starvation.' Duwaji's thrust into the limelight comes as her husband rapidly rose to national prominence with his surprise victory. The 33-year-old has faced mounting questions about his experience since he gained traction and ultimately won the Democratic primary, with his only public service work coming as a state assemblyman. In the state assembly, Mamdani promoted few bills, and his legislative record includes co-sponsoring bills requiring prisons to house inmates based on their self-declared gender, preventing law enforcement from asking about a perp's immigration status, and forcing small businesses to make their product packaging eco-friendly. 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The city assemblyman has also proposed spending $65 million on transgender care, freezing rent on rent-stabilized apartments, and creating city-owned grocery stores. He has also advocated for defunding the city's police department, defended pro- Palestine slogans like 'globalize the intifada' - which critics say is an anti-Semitic call for the destruction of Israel - and said he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
