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The Guardian
29-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘We won't let them get away with this': activists to sue Tanzania's government over ‘sexual torture'
Two east African activists say they plan to sue Tanzania's government for illegal detention and torture during a visit in support of an opposition politician in May. Boniface Mwangi, from Kenya, and Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan, sent shock waves around the region earlier this month when they gave an emotional press conference in which they alleged they had been sexually assaulted and, in Atuhaire's case, smeared in excrement after their detention in Dar es Salaam. '[The authorities] take you through sexual torture,' Mwangi said at the time. Even in a region accustomed to recurrent rights abuses, the apparent targeting of foreigners by the Tanzanian authorities marked a new and worrying turn in a crackdown on critics and opponents of the president, Samia Suluhu Hassan. In interviews with the Guardian, Mwangi and Atuhaire said they planned to initiate cases in a Tanzanian court as well as through regional and international avenues, including the east African court of justice and the African court on human and peoples' rights. 'We're not going to let them get away with this,' said Mwangi, a well-known Kenyan photojournalist and activist. Atuhaire, a lawyer, journalist and critic of the government of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, said: 'We need to hold these guys accountable to know that they cannot violate people unprovoked like that.' Mwangi and Atuhaire, who had travelled to Tanzania to attend a court hearing for a treason case against the opposition politician Tundu Lissu on 19 May, say they were taken from their hotel by people they described as security officials, illegally detained and verbally and physically abused. Mwangi said his beating started at an immigration office that afternoon when a security official slapped and punched him repeatedly in the presence of Atuhaire and three lawyers. He said he was assaulted again at a police station, where security personnel accused the activists of having travelled to Tanzania to disrupt peace and ruin the country. 'The real torture,' Mwangi said, happened that evening when a group of about seven men – whom he described as having bloodshot eyes and smelling of alcohol – and a woman handcuffed and blindfolded him and Atuhaire and drove them to a compound. Both activists said that at the compound they were ordered to strip and were suspended upside down then hit with wooden planks on their soles. They said their attackers stifled their screams by stuffing Mwangi's underwear into his mouth and putting some cloth in Atuhaire's mouth. The activists said their attackers inserted what seemed to be their hands or other objects into their rectums and smeared excrement on Atuhaire's body, then photographed them and told them not to reveal what had happened. Two days later they were dumped at their countries' borders. 'I didn't see us coming out of there alive,' said Atuhaire. 'It was really, really painful.' Mwangi said: 'Nothing in my mind or in my life prepared me for this. I've been injured before, I've been beaten before, I've been shot before. My house has been bombed. I've seen all kind of extremities and cruelties, but I've never felt such kind of pain.' The Guardian has approached a Tanzanian police spokesperson for comment. Last week Tanzania's representative to the UN, Abdallah Possi, told a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: 'Although these claims against the government are highly doubtful, we take the allegations of torture, sexual abuse and malpractices very seriously. That is why the government is currently investigating and, if established, those concerned will be held accountable.' A series of killings, kidnappings, arrests and tortures over the past year have prompted widespread condemnation locally and internationally. Among those killed was Mohamed Ali Kibao, a member of the secretariat of the main opposition party Chadema, who was found beaten and with his face doused with acid in September. In April, Father Charles Kitima, a Catholic priest who is vocal on democratic reforms and rights issues, was brutally attacked near his residence. Earlier this month, the government deregistered a church belonging to Josephat Gwajima, a politician from the ruling party, after he called out illegal detentions and enforced disappearances and announced a prayer campaign to seek divine intervention for Hassan and other national leaders. And last week two men who posted talkshows about democracy and governance on YouTube were arrested for 'improper use of social media'. There is no evidence of Hassan's personal involvement in the incidents, many of which the government has condemned. Nevertheless, opposition politicians and rights campaigners say her administration is overseeing a return to the fear-based tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli. Earlier this month she warned activists from neighbouring countries against 'trying to destabilise' Tanzania. Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a Tanzanian rights activist, described the targeting of non-Tanzanians as unprecedented and a 'sign of huge panic' on the part of the Hassan administration in the run-up to her first presidential electoral test. 'What we're seeing is a very insecure presidential candidate,' said Tsehai, who lives in self-exile in Nairobi. 'She has to lean more heavily on that security apparatus. And she has decided that she doesn't want to have any free or fair election. She just wants to get her second term. And that decision comes at a very heavy price.' Last year, Tsehai was abducted from the streets of the Kenyan capital by armed men and feared she would become the latest victim of a spate of enforced deportations from Kenya. However, she was released a short time later without crossing the border after news of her kidnapping spread quickly on social media. In the months after Hassan took office following Magufuli's death in 2021, the president gained domestic and international approval for reconciling with the opposition and reversing some of Magufuli's repressive policies. But since then a wave of repression has wiped out hopes of lasting reform. Hassan's CCM party has ruled the country since independence. The opposition and civil society have long called for reform of the constitution, which critics say grants the president and the ruling party excessive powers. Earlier this year, Lissu was arrested and charged with treason and cybercrime offences, and his Chadema party – which had called for a boycott of this year's elections unless electoral reforms were enacted – was disqualified from participating. Mwangi said CCM was acting for self-preservation. 'What Suluhu is trying to do is win an election by any means necessary,' he said. 'She's reading from a dictator's manual [that says] 'brutalise and beat people into submission'.' The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods. Secure Messaging in the Guardian app The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said. If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select 'Secure Messaging'. SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post See our guide at for alternative methods and the pros and cons of each. Atuhaire – whose work in exposing corruption won her an international women of courage award from the US last year – said her and Mwangi's experience showed the 'level of impunity' in Tanzania. The activists are still nursing injuries on their feet and other parts of their bodies, in addition to having psychological trauma. They said they had decided to speak about their alleged abuse to shine a light on the plight of Tanzanians who had gone through similar experiences. 'There's no level of shame or stigma that is more important than pursuing justice,' Atuhaire said. 'Justice is the driving factor – these people must be held accountable for what they did to us, for what they have done to Tanzanians.'
The Guardian
29-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘We won't let them get away with this': activists to sue Tanzania's government over ‘sexual torture'
Two east African activists say they plan to sue Tanzania's government for illegal detention and torture over their treatment during a visit in support of an opposition politician in May. Boniface Mwangi, from Kenya, and Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan, sent shock waves around the region earlier this month when they gave an emotional press conference in which they alleged they had been sexually assaulted and, in Atuhaire's case, smeared in excrement after their detention in Dar es Salaam. '[The authorities] take you through sexual torture,' Mwangi said at the time. Even in a region accustomed to recurrent rights abuses, the apparent targeting of foreigners by the Tanzanian authorities marked a new and worrying turn in a crackdown on critics and opponents of the president, Samia Suluhu Hassan. In interviews with the Guardian, Mwangi and Atuhaire said they planned to initiate cases in a Tanzanian court as well as through regional and international avenues, including the east African court of justice and the African court on human and peoples' rights. 'We're not going to let them get away with this,' said Mwangi, a well-known Kenyan photojournalist and activist. Atuhaire, a lawyer, journalist and critic of the government of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, said: 'We need to hold these guys accountable to know that they cannot violate people unprovoked like that.' Mwangi and Atuhaire, who had travelled to Tanzania to attend a court hearing for a treason case against the opposition politician Tundu Lissu on 19 May, say they were taken from their hotel by people they described as security officials, illegally detained and verbally and physically abused. Mwangi said his beating started at an immigration office that afternoon when a security official slapped and punched him repeatedly in the presence of Atuhaire and three lawyers. He said he was assaulted again at a police station, where security personnel accused the activists of having travelled to Tanzania to disrupt peace and ruin the country. 'The real torture,' Mwangi said, happened that evening when a group of about seven men – whom he described as having bloodshot eyes and smelling of alcohol – and a woman handcuffed and blindfolded him and Atuhaire and drove them to a compound. Both activists said that at the compound they were ordered to strip and were suspended upside down then hit with wooden planks on their soles. They said their attackers stifled their screams by stuffing Mwangi's underwear into his mouth and putting some cloth in Atuhaire's mouth. The activists said their attackers inserted what seemed to be their hands or other objects into their rectums and smeared excrement on Atuhaire's body, then photographed them and told them not to reveal what had happened. Two days later they were dumped at their countries' borders. 'I didn't see us coming out of there alive,' said Atuhaire. 'It was really, really painful.' Mwangi said: 'Nothing in my mind or in my life prepared me for this. I've been injured before, I've been beaten before, I've been shot before. My house has been bombed. I've seen all kind of extremities and cruelties, but I've never felt such kind of pain.' The Guardian has approached a Tanzanian police spokesperson for comment. Last week Tanzania's representative to the UN, Abdallah Possi, told a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: 'Although these claims against the government are highly doubtful, we take the allegations of torture, sexual abuse and malpractices very seriously. That is why the government is currently investigating and, if established, those concerned will be held accountable.' A series of killings, kidnappings, arrests and tortures over the past year have prompted widespread condemnation locally and internationally. Among those killed was Mohamed Ali Kibao, a member of the secretariat of the main opposition party Chadema, who was found beaten and with his face doused with acid in September. In April, Father Charles Kitima, a Catholic priest who is vocal on democratic reforms and rights issues, was brutally attacked near his residence. Earlier this month, the government deregistered a church belonging to Josephat Gwajima, a politician from the ruling party, after he called out illegal detentions and enforced disappearances and announced a prayer campaign to seek divine intervention for Hassan and other national leaders. And last week two men who posted talkshows about democracy and governance on YouTube were arrested for 'improper use of social media'. There is no evidence of Hassan's personal involvement in the incidents, many of which the government has condemned. Nevertheless, opposition politicians and rights campaigners say her administration is overseeing a return to the fear-based tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli. Earlier this month she warned activists from neighbouring countries against 'trying to destabilise' Tanzania. Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a Tanzanian rights activist, described the targeting of non-Tanzanians as unprecedented and a 'sign of huge panic' on the part of the Hassan administration in the run-up to her first presidential electoral test. 'What we're seeing is a very insecure presidential candidate,' said Tsehai, who lives in self-exile in Nairobi. 'She has to lean more heavily on that security apparatus. And she has decided that she doesn't want to have any free or fair election. She just wants to get her second term. And that decision comes at a very heavy price.' Last year, Tsehai was abducted from the streets of the Kenyan capital by armed men and feared she would become the latest victim of a spate of enforced deportations from Kenya. However, she was released a short time later without crossing the border after news of her kidnapping spread quickly on social media. In the months after Hassan took office following Magufuli's death in 2021, the president gained domestic and international approval for reconciling with the opposition and reversing some of Magufuli's repressive policies. But since then a wave of repression has wiped out hopes of lasting reform. Hassan's CCM party has ruled the country since independence. The opposition and civil society have long called for reform of the constitution, which critics say grants the president and the ruling party excessive powers. Earlier this year, Lissu was arrested and charged with treason and cybercrime offences, and his Chadema party – which had called for a boycott of this year's elections unless electoral reforms were enacted – was disqualified from participating. Mwangi said CCM was acting for self-preservation. 'What Suluhu is trying to do is win an election by any means necessary,' he said. 'She's reading from a dictator's manual [that says] 'brutalise and beat people into submission'.' Atuhaire – whose work in exposing corruption won her an international women of courage award from the US last year – said her and Mwangi's experience showed the 'level of impunity' in Tanzania. The activists are still nursing injuries on their feet and other parts of their bodies, in addition to having psychological trauma. They said they had decided to speak about their alleged abuse to shine a light on the plight of Tanzanians who had gone through similar experiences. 'There's no level of shame or stigma that is more important than pursuing justice,' Atuhaire said. 'Justice is the driving factor – these people must be held accountable for what they did to us, for what they have done to Tanzanians.'
News24
04-06-2025
- General
- News24
Kenyan, Ugandan activists allege sexual torture in Tanzania
Human rights defenders Boniface Mwangi from Kenya and Uganda's Agather Atuhaire have said that they were beaten and sexually assaulted by Tanzanian security officers while in custody. Mwangi and Atuhaire made the allegations at a joint press conference in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, on Monday. Both had separately spoken of their brutal treatment in the days after their release. The two had travelled to Tanzania attend the first court appearance on 19 May 2025, of Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who faces treason charges. They were abducted from their hotel room and allege they were interrogated and tortured by security officers before being dumped several days later near the borders of their countries. Speaking at the press conference, they said they had both filed a complaint against the Tanzanian authorities. 'What they did to us, it breaks me' Mwangi, a photojournalist and prominent campaigner against corruption and police brutality in Kenya, broke down in tears as he recounted the brutal beatings and the sexual assault. READ | Magudumana lawfully deported from Tanzania, says SCA - but one judge disagrees He was stripped naked, he said, hung upside down and beaten on his feet. 'They would put objects in my anus and then say: 'Say you're feeling nice, say you're feeling good,'' Mwangi said, addressing a press conference alongside Atuhaire. Tony Karumba/AFP Officers told him that they filmed everything and to never speak of what happened, otherwise they would release the footage, he said. 'And what they did to us is, it breaks me. ... We're here to share our story, and to say that our bodies may be broken, but our spirit is strong,' Mwangi added. No shame, rather 'desire for justice' Atuhaire said she too had been blindfolded, tied up and similarly assaulted. 'The only thing I desire is justice,' the award-winning journalist said. 'It is what has enabled me to hold on in this situation.' Although she came from Uganda, a country she described as 'very dictatorial', she never imagined that she 'would find a worse foreign country, a worse government'. You cannot be the head of state, the president, yet publicly and shamelessly condone torture, sexual violence. Agather Atuhaire On the day of the abductions, President Samia Suluhu Hassan urged security services 'not to allow ill-mannered individuals from other countries to cross the line here'. Atuhaire, who won the EU Human Rights Defenders' Award in 2023 and an International Women of Courage Award from the US in 2024, has previously said that she refused to be silenced by the shame of being a victim of sexual assault. 'You are the one who is committing a heinous crime, so you are the one who should be ashamed,' Atuhaire told the AFP news agency in May. No comment from Tanzania's government Spokespeople for Tanzania's government, Foreign Affairs Ministry and police did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the allegations, the news agency said on Monday evening. AFP also said it attempted to reach the Tanzanian government for comment, but there was no immediate response. The case has highlighted a growing repression of political dissent in Tanzania, criticised by a wide range of bodies and organisations, including Amnesty International and the European Parliament. Opposition leader Lissu, Hassan's main political rival, was arrested in April and charged with treason. His Chadema party has been disqualified from running in October's presidential and legislative elections. Hassan's ruling party has nominated her as their candidate in October's election. Tanzania has been ruled by the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party since independence in 1961.
eNCA
03-06-2025
- General
- eNCA
Tanzania faces call to investigate activists' torture claims
DAR ES SALAAM - The international community must pressure Tanzania to investigate police officers accused of sexually torturing Kenyan and Ugandan activists last month, a rights coalition in Kenya said on Tuesday. Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire were detained in Tanzania's business capital Dar es Salaam between 19-23 May when they attempted to attend the trial of opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who is charged with treason and faces a potential death penalty. They have both detailed torture and sexual abuse by the police officers who detained them. On Tuesday, the Police Reforms Working Group, a coalition of Kenyan rights organisations, called on "the East African Community and the international community to demand that the government of Tanzania hold accountable the police officers and their commanding officers responsible for the torture, assault, and sexual assault committed against Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire." The group spoke alongside the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) at a press conference in Nairobi. "Torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are serious crimes under multiple treaties and international law," they said. "The government of Tanzania must arrest and prosecute all officers suspected of responsibility for the human rights violations against Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire and bring them to justice in a fair trial." Irungu Houghton, director of Amnesty International Kenya, said Tanzania was engaged in "a brutal campaign against all forms of dissent" ahead of elections in October. President Samia Suluhu Hassan is running for re-election but her government has banned the main opposition party, Chadema, after it insisted on reforms before taking part.
Reuters
02-06-2025
- General
- Reuters
Kenyan and Ugandan activists say they were sexually assaulted in Tanzania
NAIROBI, June 2 (Reuters) - A Kenyan and a Ugandan human rights activist who were detained in Tanzania for several days last month said on Monday that Tanzanian security officers sexually assaulted them while in custody. 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.
