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

JOHANNESBURG —At a packed press convention this week two East African activists wiped away tears as they detailed their alleged sexual assault and torture whereas 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 Division final 12 months – stated they’d traveled to neighboring Tanzania in mid-Could to observe the “sham” court docket case of an opposition chief there.

They allege they had been each subsequently detained by a state safety official and males in plain garments. Mwangi described in graphic element how he was stripped bare, hung the wrong way up from a metallic pole and sexually assaulted with quite a lot of objects.

He says whereas this was happening his was made to shout phrases praising Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan — the nation’s first feminine president who is predicted to hunt re-election in October.

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

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

The 2 activists had been ultimately dumped close to the border.

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

Treason Trial

The trial Mwangi and Atuhaire had gone to Tanzania to attend a court docket listening to of Tanzanian opposition chief Tundu Lissu, chief of the CHADEMA social gathering.

Lissu — who survived being shot 16 occasions in a 2017 assassination try — was arrested in April on treason expenses.

His arrest comes forward of Tanzania’s common elections scheduled for October. CHADEMA is already barred from contesting the polls and Lissu had been holding rallies across the nation earlier than his arrest below the slogan: “No reforms, no elections.”

His American lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, instructed NPR in an interview that the opposition chief faces the dying penalty if convicted of treason. He stated the costs had been “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 stated.

“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 additionally represented Ugandan popstar-turned-opposition chief Bobi Wine.

Requested if the activists who’d gone to help Lissu would carry circumstances of their very own, Amsterdam stated he could be chatting with Mwangi about that risk.

The Bulldozer and the ‘Reformist’

When Tanzanian President Hassan succeeded authoritarian chief John Magufuli in 2021, she ushered in quite a lot of reforms, together with ending bans on political rallies, repealing repressive legal guidelines across the media, and releasing Lissu’s CHADEMA predecessor from jail.

After the oppressive rule of Magufuli — who was nicknamed “the Bulldozer” — many Tanzanians had been hopeful the nation was on a extra democratic path. However forward of native elections final November, analysts say Hassan’s authorities began its personal crackdown.

CHADEMA official Ali Kibao was kidnapped and murdered in September, and a whole bunch of the social gathering’s officers had been detained forward of a deliberate rally.

Amnesty Worldwide is among the many rights teams which 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 stated.

“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.”