Stripped, beaten, abandoned: A Ugandan activist’s nightmare in Tanzania

Ugandan human rights defender Agather Atuhaire has shared the horrifying details of her detention in Tanzania, where she says she was stripped, tortured, and later dumped at the Ugandan border under the cover of nightfall.

Her painful testimony paints a chilling picture, one that mirrors the brutal treatment of Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi, who had been released just hours earlier and is now receiving medical treatment in Nairobi.

Atuhaire, a respected voice for justice, spoke through tears and trembling memory as she recounted what happened.

"When I get there, the first order is to take off my clothes," she said.

"Before I did anything, there was someone who hit me on my back and another who violently took off my clothes."

Thrown to the ground and handcuffed, Atuhaire was subjected to beatings that left her in agony.

"They tried to put a sweater so the injuries on my hands would have been quite severe," she recalled.

"There’s one hitting under my feet so badly, the pain was too much, and another shoving something in my… so that is rape, by all standards."

Her suffering continued during her transfer, with the attackers gagging her and turning up the car radio — an eerie tactic that became clear when she realized it was to drown out the sound of Mwangi’s screams from a nearby location.

"The pain they were inflicting on him was too much," she said.

Their release, far from an act of mercy, has ignited a wave of outrage across East Africa. Activists and rights groups are now demanding answers and justice for what they describe as acts of state-sponsored terror.

"We demand that the people who subjected them to this torture be held accountable," said Nungi Githuku, warning that this brutality bore the hallmarks of state-sanctioned abuse under Tanzania’s President Suluhu Hassan.

Hussein Khalid, CEO of Vocal Africa, echoed the call to resist tyranny.

“Hatutakubali udhalimu kukita mizizi katika maeneo ya Afrika Mashariki. Na kwa Waafrika wote huu ni wakati wa kusimama imara na kusema hatutatumiwa tena.”

Translation: We will not allow injustice to take root in the East African region. And to all Africans, this is the time to stand firm and say we will not be used again.

Booker Omole, secretary general of the CPM-K party, pointed to what he called a coordinated effort by East African regimes to suppress dissent:

"The ruling class in East Africa are solidly together to oppose any uprising that might overthrow them."

In the voices of Atuhaire and Mwangi, the pain of two individuals has become a rallying cry for a region demanding dignity, freedom, and justice.