Activist Boniface Mwangi and Ugandan journalist Agather Atuhaire have narrated how a simple act of solidarity to support Tanzanian Opposition leader Tundu Lissu turned into a nightmare of torture, sexual assault and psychological trauma.
Boniface Mwangi, Agather Atuhaire recount torture, sexual abuse at hands of Tanzanian captors
Their trip to Dar es Salaam turned into a horrifying ordeal after the two were abducted from their hotel rooms, brutalised by Tanzanian security forces and subjected to days of physical and sexual abuse that they say left them scarred for life.
In a harrowing press conference in Nairobi on Monday, the two recounted the terrifying events of May 18–22, describing how they were hunted down, beaten and assaulted while being accused of plotting to destabilise Tanzania.
Their testimony paints a chilling picture of political repression, cross-border impunity and the brutal silencing of dissent in East Africa.
Mr Mwangi and Atuhaire had traveled to Dar es Salaam to attend the May 19, 2025, court hearing of Mr Lissu and like other East African activists and lawyers, they wanted to show solidarity in a country where political dissent has increasingly come under fire.
On the night of May 18, Tanzanian security officers reportedly banged on their hotel room doors throughout the night.
A tearful Mwangi recounted the traumatic experience, which began shortly after he arrived in Tanzania.
He had retired to his room to rest after a long journey, unsettled by the news that other Kenyan visitors including People’s Liberation Party leader Martha Karua, journalist Lynn Ngugi and Gloria Kimani had already been deported.
Then, unexpectedly, a group of men claiming to be police and immigration officers began banging on his door demanding he come out.
He says he declined, and at around 3.30 am, a man claiming to be a lawyer joined the group and urged him to comply.
Still, Mr Mwangi barricaded himself inside until morning when the group finally left.
Later that morning as he prepared to check out, he says he called called Ms Atuhaire and gave her his bags for safekeeping.
But as he headed downstairs, he was ambushed by a larger group of the same men.
“I screamed throughout the hotel and ran to my colleagues. The men followed me and insisted they only wanted to question me,” Mr Mwangi said at the interview.
He was dragged to the hotel’s security room where a review of CCTV footage showed he had handed over his bags to Ms Atuhaire.
As a result, she too was arrested.
The two were taken to an immigration office where they were interrogated and asked to surrender their phones. While Ms Atuhaire’s phone was confiscated, Mr Mwangi’s had already been handed to a colleague for safekeeping.
While there, Mwangi says Kenya’s Ambassador to Tanzania Isaac Njenga informed him he would be deported.
However, before any official deportation began, a man claiming to be a government official began physically assaulting him right in front of three Tanganyika Law Society lawyers and Ms Atuhaire.
“We were taken to the Immigration offices and questioned for over an hour at then taken to a police station where we met a man named Mafwele. The beatings continued even in front of the lawyers. Mafwele threatened to rape Agather.
“When the lawyers left, they didn’t tell our families that we were being beaten, threatened and harassed. Because in front of them, Mafwele even asked if I was circumcised and said they’d circumcise me again,” claimed Mr Mwangi.
Former Chief Justice Dr Willy Mutunga(left) and Activist Boniface Mwangi after addressing journalists at Mageuzi Hub in Nairobi on June 2,2025, on the State of Human Rights in East Africa.
With no legal protection, the violence escalated and the two activists said they were beaten and interrogated repeatedly.
They were asked who had funded their trip, what they knew about Tundu Lissu and whether they intended to “destabilise” Tanzania.
On her part, Ms Atuahire said they were held at the police station for several hours before Mafwele called in a group of thugs “to discipline” them.
The two were blindfolded and shoved into a waiting Land Cruiser with tinted windows and say they had no idea they were being taken to be tortured.
“All this while, I kept asking them why they were arresting and beating us. They had not told us what crime we had committed,” Ms Atuhaire said.
They were driven to an unknown building and placed in separate rooms and by Monday evening, the the torture began.
Mr Mwangi said he was forced to strip naked, then tied and suspended upside down from a pole. His feet were beaten while gospel music blared from the car to drown out his screams.
When he cried out in pain, they shoved his underwear into his mouth.
“When I couldn’t give them the answers they wanted on why I wasin Tanzania, one of them suggested using fire. They applied lubricant in my rectum and began violating and molesting me with objects,” he said.
During the assault, his captors forced him to chant praises for President Samia Suluhu.
“They told me they were recording everything and that I should never speak of it. If I did, they would release the footage of what they did to me,” he added.
In the next room, Ms Atuhaire said she listened in horror to her colleague’s brutality.
Although she had always suspected she might one day face abuse for her activism, she never imagined it would happen in a foreign country.
Like Mwangi, she was also violated with objects. Her captors never used their own bodies, but inflicted the same sexual violence with tools. She says her feet were swollen from the beatings, with the attackers determined to cause as much pain as possible.
After the torture, the two spent Monday night on a cold floor and the following morning, they were transferred separately to new locations.
“I could hear the call to prayer. It was hot and humid,” he recalled.
On Wednesday morning, he was given a cup of tea and a mandazi, but the pain was too great to eat. He begged to crawl on all fours to use the bathroom because his legs were too swollen to walk upright.
On Thursday, they were separately driven to their respective country borders. Mr Mwangi was dumped near the Horohoro border between Tanzania and Kenya, handed Tsh20,000 and Sh400 and left to find his way home. He borrowed a phone from a stranger to call his wife.
Ms Atuhaire endured a 1,480-kilometre drive to Uganda’s border. Along the way, she says her captors forced her to take lots of painkillers, seemingly eager to reduce visible injuries before she was released.
“The psychological torture of that drive was worse than the beatings. I thought they were taking me to be fed to wild animals or throwing me into the ocean,” she recalled.
What terrified her most, she said, was the brazenness of the operation.
“Public officials weren’t afraid to send thugs after us. I cannot fathom that level of open impunity. If that doesn’t scare East Africans, what will? The Tanzanian leaders, openly in Parliament, showed the world that when it comes to torture, sexual violence is the first thing they think of,” she said tearfully.
Although she comes from Uganda, a country she described as deeply authoritarian, she said she had “never seen a country more brutal than Tanzania”.
“We are alive because of East African Citizens. We are on our own, we were saved by you, ordinary people. No guns, no money, nothing but noise. We only have each other,” she said.
The two activists, with the support of regional legal teams, have initiated legal action against the Tanzanian government.
