Tanzanian police dump ‘severely tortured' activist on border as state slides back into authoritarianism

Daily Maverick

22-05-2025

Something is rotten in the state of Tanzania. Despite promising to walk back the worst of former president John Magufuli's autocratic tendencies, following his death from Covid-19 and her ascension to the top job in 2021, Tanzanian leader Samia Suluhu Hassan has slipped right back into the dictator's mould. This week, as her fiercest opponent went on trial for treason, foreign activists travelling to Dar es Salaam to support him were detained and deported. Two of them were tortured in police custody and one is still missing.
A prominent Kenyan activist was dumped at a remote border post by Tanzanian security agents on Thursday, after having been detained for days and tortured at Dar es Salaam Central Prison, alongside his Ugandan colleague. She is still missing.
Photojournalist and opposition politician Boniface Mwangi and Ugandan human rights lawyer Agather Atuhaire were arrested shortly after entering the country on 18 May to attend the first court hearing of opposition politician Tundu Antiphas Lissu. Atuhaire has not been heard from since, but Mwangi said she was tortured at the prison as well.
Lissu, the leader and former presidential candidate of the Chadema party, was charged with treason in early April following a political rally at which he called for election reform in the run-up to October's polls. The charge carries the death penalty in Tanzania.
'There is no legal case against Lissu,' said his younger brother, Ikoti Lissu, who is also a member of his legal team. 'Boycotting an election, campaigning for reforms – how can that become a treason charge? The president should not be allowed to appoint electoral commission officials,' the younger Lissu said.
Foreign supporters detained, disappeared
Mwangi and Atuhaire were part of a delegation of East African opposition leaders and human rights defenders who travelled to Dar es Salaam on 18 May to attend and observe Lissu's first court hearing. They were the only two allowed to enter the country. Several of their colleagues – Kenyan human rights defender Hussein Khalid, lawyer Martha Karua, former Kenyan chief justice Willy Mtunga, activists Lini Ngingi and Gloria Kimani and journalist Hania Safia Adan – were detained at Julius Nyerere International Airport. They were deported hours later.
On the same day as Lissu's hearing, during the launch of the country's new foreign policy, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan issued a warning to foreign activists that the country 'cannot be a place where anyone feels entitled to say whatever they want about Tanzania'.
'There is a growing trend of activists from regional blocs attempting to meddle in our affairs,' Suluhu said from the stage. 'If they are restricted in their own countries, they should not be allowed to cause disorder here.'
Mwangi is no stranger to the risks of speaking truth to power. His photojournalism and activism against government corruption and oppression in Kenya – and the heavy-handed response he and his family experience in return – were documented in the award-winning 2020 film, Softie.
A thorn in CCM's side
Lissu returned home in 2023 following several years in exile and recovery. As a member of parliament, in 2017 he narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Dodoma in which he was shot 16 times by gunmen, who strafed his vehicle with assault rifles outside his official residence. Lissu, who had 19 surgical operations, steadfastly maintains the men were hired by then-president John Magufuli's CCM party.
Attempts to contact the spokesperson for CCM and the president's office went unanswered by the time of publication.
Immediately picking up the campaign trail for Chadema upon his return, Lissu was arrested within months, on the first of several occasions. Government officials said he was encouraging the public to rebel and disrupt elections.
Lissu is being held at Ukonga Maximum Security Prison. At his first appearance at the Kisutu Resident Magistrates' Court on Monday, he was surrounded by at least six prison officers in the dock, prompting the judge to direct them to let him appear freely. An earlier decision to hold the hearing online was struck down, and the case was postponed to 2 June – in open court – to allow prosecutors time to finalise their case.
Chadema has been banned from contesting the 2025 presidential and parliamentary elections.
'Initially when [president] Suluhu took over, she came up with lots of rhetoric about reforms,' said Chadema director of foreign affairs and the diaspora, John Kitoka. 'But she is turning out to be just as bad as Magufuli. It's the same script.'
'[President Suluhu's address] was a declaration of war on free speech, human rights defenders and activists for democracy. We should brace for a new wave of abductions, forced disappearances and killings, because her statement was an endorsement of such extrajudicial crimes,' Kitoka said.
The same script
Suluhu came into power promising increased freedom of speech and political contestation in the wake of Magufuli's hard authoritarian regime. A steadfast Covid-19 denier, Magufuli died from the disease in March 2021, after instructing citizens to pray or inhale herb-infused steam to protect themselves.
Lissu was Magufuli's most vocal critic, and continues to criticise Suluhu's CCM in the same manner. In the lead-up to elections, attacks on Chadema have ramped up once again. In September 2024, a prominent party member, Ali Mohamed Kibau, was forced off a bus, his body later found severely beaten and doused in acid.
A worrisome part of the problem is the lack of judicial independence, said Ikoti Lissu.
'Judges are appointed by the president,' he said. 'The intention here is to keep Lissu in custody, without bail, [at least] until the election is over.
'But Tundu is a straightforward person. He's a guy who likes justice. The only choice they have is to intimidate him,' Lissu said.
Activists' families call for information
On Thursday, the families of Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire said they had become deeply concerned for the activists' safety and called on the Kenyan government to intervene. On Friday morning, Mwangi's lawyer, James WaNjeri, received news that he had been 'dumped at one of the coastal border points, severely tortured'.
After managing to make contact with his wife, Njeri, Mwangi was rescued by a human rights group in the area, said WaNjeri. His feet and legs were severely beaten and he struggled to walk.
Mwangi has been taken to a medical facility for treatment in Nairobi. Atuhaire is presumed to still be in police custody. The status of her health and wellbeing is unknown. DM