Torture and treason trials: what’s happening in Tanzania?

JOHANNESBURG —At a packed press conference this week two East African activists wiped away tears as they detailed their alleged sexual assault and torture while in detention in Tanzania.

Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi and Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire – who was given an “International Woman of Courage” award by the US State Department last year – said they had traveled to neighboring Tanzania in mid-May to monitor the “sham” court case of an opposition leader there.

They allege they were both subsequently detained by a state security official and men in plain clothes. Mwangi described in graphic detail how he was stripped naked, hung upside down from a metal pole and sexually assaulted with a number of objects.

He says while this was going on his was made to shout phrases praising Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan — the country’s first female president who is expected to seek re-election in October.

“The pain cut so deep that l couldn’t even cry, but screamed in excruciating pain,” Mwangi told the press conference.

His colleague Atuhaire was taken into the different room and raped.

The two activists were eventually dumped near the border.

Tanzanian police have rejected the activists’ account. The US Department of State‘s Bureau of Africa Affairs has expressed concern over the activists’ alleged treatment.

Treason Trial

The trial Mwangi and Atuhaire had gone to Tanzania to attend a court hearing of Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu, leader of the CHADEMA party.

Lissu — who survived being shot 16 times in a 2017 assassination attempt — was arrested in April on treason charges.

His arrest comes ahead of Tanzania’s general elections scheduled for October. CHADEMA is already barred from contesting the polls and Lissu had been holding rallies around the country before his arrest under the slogan: “No reforms, no elections.”

His American lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, told NPR in an interview that the opposition leader faces the death penalty if convicted of treason. He said the charges were “completely bogus.”

“The reason they’ve charged him with treason is that its non-bailable, and this is a common ploy in Tanzanian election politics, to instrumentalize the courts to bar your opponents,” the lawyer said.

“We demean the concepts of courts and justice when we talk about the kind of trials that are happening in East Africa,” added Amsterdam, who has also represented Ugandan popstar-turned-opposition leader Bobi Wine.

Asked if the activists who’d gone to support Lissu would bring cases of their own, Amsterdam said he would be speaking to Mwangi about that possibility.

The Bulldozer and the ‘Reformist’

When Tanzanian President Hassan succeeded authoritarian leader John Magufuli in 2021, she ushered in a number of reforms, including ending bans on political rallies, repealing repressive laws around the media, and releasing Lissu’s CHADEMA predecessor from prison.

After the oppressive rule of Magufuli — who was nicknamed “the Bulldozer” — many Tanzanians were hopeful the country was on a more democratic path. But ahead of local elections last November, analysts say Hassan’s government started its own crackdown.

CHADEMA official Ali Kibao was abducted and murdered in September, and hundreds of the party’s officials were detained ahead of a planned rally.

Amnesty International is among the rights groups that have condemned the crackdown on the opposition.

“The authorities’ campaign of repression saw four government critics forcibly disappeared, and one unlawfully killed in 2024,” the human rights watchdog said.

“The police have also prevented opposition members from holding meetings and other political gatherings, subjecting them to mass arrest, arbitrary detention and unlawful use of force.”