Ugandan activist arrested in Tanzania found 'tortured' at border: rights group
KAMPALA, UGANDA - A Ugandan activist who was arrested and held "incommunicado" in Tanzania after attempting to attend a treason trial for an opposition leader has been found at the Ugandan border with "indications of torture", a rights group said Friday.
Ugandan activist and journalist Agather Atuhaire was arrested earlier this week alongside her Kenyan counterpart, Boniface Mwangi, a prominent campaigner against corruption and police brutality in Kenya.
Atuhaire and Mwangi were among activists who went to Tanzania to show solidarity with opposition leader Tundu Lissu at the latest hearing of his treason trial on Monday.
Ugandan rights group Agora Discourse posted on X on Friday that Atuhaire had been found.
READ: Kenyan lawyer for Tanzania opposition leader arrested: spokesperson
"She was abandoned at the border by Tanzanian authorities," it said.
Its co-founder Spire Ssentongo told AFP that "Agather is under the care of family and friends".
"She was dumped at the border at night by the authorities and there are indications of torture," Ssentongo added.
Police in Tanzania initially told a Tanzanian rights group that Mwangi and Atuhaire would be deported by air.
But Mwangi was also found abandoned on a roadside in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border, according to the local newspaper Daily Nation.
"We were both treated worse than dogs, chained, blindfolded and underwent a very gruesome torture," Mwangi told reporters on his return to Nairobi.
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said earlier this week that foreign activists would not be allowed to interfere in the country's affairs.
She urged security services "not to allow ill-mannered individuals from other countries to cross the line here".
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