Kenya

Opapo, Kenya – Perched in the grass alongside the Rongo-Homa Bay Road in Kenya’s Migori County, a rusted sign announces the Melkio St Joseph Missions of Messiah Church in Africa. Beyond it, a sandy path meets big blue and purple gates that barricade the now-deserted grounds from view.

Just more than a month ago, the church in Opapo village was thrust into the spotlight when reports of secret burials and “cult-like” practices emerged.

On April 21, local police stormed the grounds and discovered two bodies buried within the fenced compound – including that of a police officer who was also a church member – as well as dozens of other worshippers who had been living there.

During the raid, 57 people were rescued and taken into custody. In the weeks since, most have been released, but police have banned them from returning to the church and sealed off the compound.

For Kenyans, the incident has unearthed the memory of other controversial churches steeped in allegations of abuse, like the 2023 case where more than 400 people linked to a church-cult starved to death in the Shakahola Forest.

In Opapo village, residents are troubled by the deaths and the decades-long secrecy surrounding the church. Many want to see the permanent closure of the compound and the exhumation and return of the bodies buried there.

Brian Juma, 27, has lived directly beside the church all his life. He told Al Jazeera locals believe it was started by a man who fashioned himself as a sort-of god figure, and who the followers of the church prayed to.

Juma claims that when the church leader died 10 years ago, followers did not immediately bury him but prayed for three days in the hope that he would rise.

Pauline Auma, a 53-year-old mother of six who also lives near the church, said the congregation was set up in their area in the early 1990s, although she could not recall the exact year.

“When it came, we thought it was a normal church like any other. I remember my sister even attended a service there, thinking it was like other churches, only to come and tell us things that were not normal were taking place. For example, she said the Father there claimed to be God himself,” Auma recounted.

In the years that followed, the church recruited members from different locations across the country. Juma said congregants were not from around the area, spoke different languages, and never left the compound to go to their own homes.

According to Caren Kiarie, a human rights activist from neighbouring Kisumu County, the church has several branches across the Kenyan Nyanza region, and sends members from one location to the other.

Many people came to worship and live within the church full time, Opapo villagers remember.

“They were very friendly people who did business around the Opapo area and interacted well with the people here,” Juma said. “But they would never live outside the church, as they all went back inside in the evening. Within the church compound, they had cattle, sheep, poultry and planted crops for their food.”

Though the worshippers could interact with outsiders, locals say the children living there – some with their parents and others who neighbours said were taken in alone – never attended school, while members were barred from seeking medical care if they were sick.

On the day of the police raid and rescue, many of the worshippers looked weak and ill, said Juma, who over the years befriended some young people whose parents belonged to the church. “They were sickly, as they were never allowed to go to the hospital or even take pain medication,” he said, quoting what his neighbours had told him. Auma believes those who were rescued that day were the sickly ones, as the others had escaped.

The 57 initially refused to leave the compound at all, insisting the church was their only “home”. But police took them to the nearby Rongo Sub-county Hospital to be treated. They again refused medical care and instead began singing Christian praise songs in the Dholuo language. Auma said the songs were chants asking God to save them and take them home to heaven.

Disturbed by the commotion, health workers recommended that they be moved from the hospital because they were making other patients uncomfortable. That’s when they were taken into police custody. According to the assistant county commissioner, Josphat Kingoku, the worshippers were released from police custody two weeks ago, but he did not know their whereabouts.

Seeking news about loved ones

In Kwoyo in Homa Bay County, Linet Achieng worries about her 71-year-old mother, who left home to join the Migori church 11 years ago and never returned.

Her mother was introduced to the church by a neighbour who was originally from Migori, Achieng said.

“Initially, she had gone to seek healing from a backache that had troubled her for years,” said the 43-year-old, explaining that the church offered promises of health.

The family initially kept in touch with their mother, asking when she would come home after being healed. She kept making promises to return, but never did. Achieng tried to convince her mother to leave the place, she said, but her attempts were in vain.

“At some point, she stopped talking to us, and when my younger brother and I went to inquire how she was doing, we were sent away from the church and told that unless we were willing to join the church, we were not welcome in there,” she said.

After the raid last month, Achieng learned her mother was among those rescued but says she does not want anything to do with her family.

While many worshipers’ families wait to hear about their relatives, one family knows for sure they will never see their loved one again.

Dan Ayoo Obura – a police constable – was one of those who died at the church compound, reportedly on March 27, according to local media reports.

He had been introduced to the church by his wife, who was a leader there, his relatives said.

Obura had left his workplace at the General Service Unit police headquarters in Nairobi in February before travelling home to Kisumu County on sick leave, according to his uncle Dickson Otieno.

He was taken to a hospital in the area, but after a week at the facility, “he disappeared”, Otieno told Al Jazeera.

“We reported to the police and started looking for him everywhere, panicked that we might never see him again. Later, we had information from some neighbours that he is in Migori at a church. That’s when we went there to ask the church leaders where he was. They told us he was not at the church and had not seen him.

“About a month later, they called us to say that the person we were looking for had died the previous night and that they had buried him that day.”

The family then informed the police and human rights activists like Kiarie, and travelled to Opapo to try and locate his body.

Kiarie, who is a rights defender and paralegal at the Nyando Social Justice Centre, accompanied the family to Opapo in March.

“We’ve not been given the body,” she told Al Jazeera, explaining that she interviewed residents and church members while in Opapo and heard concerning reports about what was happening at the compound.

No one was allowed to have an intimate relationship at the church, she said, while husbands and wives were required to separate after joining. These practices were echoed by the compound’s neighbours in Migori.

“There are also serious claims of sexual violence at the church where the male leaders were having sex with the girls and women there,” Kiarie said. “That was why they did not want any man inside to touch the women because they belonged to them,” she alleged.

Kiarie said since the police raid, the compound’s neighbours have also reported there may be more than just two bodies buried inside – which she said could be what is delaying Obura’s exhumation. “They’re still waiting because they said the issue has been picked up by the national government, and they [the national authorities] want to exhume the other bodies [that may be there],” she said.

Kiarie feels the Migori church may prove to be another case like the Shakahola cult “massacre” if it is found that more people indeed died and were buried there without their families’ knowledge.

From Shakahola to Migori

The events in Migori have opened wounds for many survivors and relatives of the 429 people who were starved to death in Kilifi County’s Shakahola, in 2023.

Led by Pastor Paul McKenzie, the congregants there also left their families and abandoned property, seeking to go to heaven and meet their messiah. But news reports said that at the church, they were radicalised and brainwashed, convinced that if they stopped eating they would die peacefully, go to heaven and meet their god.

Both Grace Kazungu’s parents and two of her siblings perished in the Shakhola church cult, says the 32-year-old mother of three from Kilifi.

Whenever she and her brother tried to question the church’s teachings, the others would not hear a word against it, she told Al Jazeera.

“They would argue that we were ‘anti-Christ’ and that their church was the only sacred and holy way to heaven,” she said.

“Months later, I heard from my brother that they had sold the family’s property and were going to live inside the church after ditching earthly possessions.

“We tried to reach them but were blocked by their leader. My husband broke the news to me one morning after a year that they had been found inside the forest and they were dead and buried.”

After their deaths, they were buried in mass graves within the Shakahola Forest where the church was located. Upon discovery, following a tip from the local media, the police launched an operation to cordon off the area so they could exhume the bodies, test for DNA, and return the deceased to their relatives for proper burial.

They later arrested the church leader, McKenzie, and charged him with the murder of 191 people, child torture, and “terrorism”. He and several other co-accused remain in police custody, pending sentencing.

Unlike Shakahola, the Migori church allowed its followers to work, eat and run businesses in the nearby Opapo and Rongo towns. But like Shakahola, it also kept them living apart from the rest of society, barred them from accessing school, marriage and medical care, and severely punished supposed transgressions, according to locals who heard and witnessed violent beatings and fights inside the compound.

In many societies, religious leaders are widely respected and trusted, and they often influence beliefs and actions in the private and public spheres, explained Fathima Azmiya Badurdee, a postdoctoral researcher in the faculty of Religion, Culture and Society at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

“People are in search of ‘hope’ in the daily issues they confront. Religious leaders are pivotal in this role in providing hope to sustain their futures … or even in life after death,” she explained.

Still, “awareness among religious communities on opportunistic leadership and cult dynamics is needed,” she said, referring to the Opapo and Shakahola forest cases.

“Many people blindly trust religious leaders without questioning them. Words and opinions of religious leaders are taken as the gospel truth. The lack of questioning, critical thinking skills, or even the lack of religious literacy often influences individuals to believe in any extreme forms propagated by these leaders,” she added.

‘I fear she might die’

Most of the 57 Migori worshippers are now back in society once more. However, police extended the detention of four key suspects while investigations and autopsies continued this month.

Assistant county commissioner Kingoku declined to provide details to Al Jazeera about any charges against the worshippers, saying they did not appear in court.

Meanwhile, the Kenya National Police Service spokesperson Michael Muchiri told Al Jazeera: “All individuals found culpable will be taken through the prosecution process as guided by the law.”

Investigations are ongoing into Obura’s cause of death, verification of additional burials alleged by residents, and a probe into whether the church operated as an unregistered “company” rather than a licensed religious organisation.

According to the county commissioner, Mutua Kisilu, the church had been irregularly registered as a company. After the raid last month, Nyanza regional commissioner, Florence Mworoa, announced a region-wide crackdown on unregistered churches.

Muchiri said the government regulates religious outfits in the country and will bring to book all those found to have broken the law.

“Any illegally operating organisation – the government has been clear about it – is quickly shut down. Prosecution, like in the Migori case, follows. Identification of such ‘cult-like’ illegal religious entities is through the local intelligence and security teams and information from the local people,” Muchiri said.

In the meantime in Homa Bay, Achieng finally heard from her mother one last time after the worshippers were released from custody. She told her daughter that she had found a new home and that her family were “worldly” people who she should never associate with again.

“I thought of going to get her from police custody and secure her release, but I [was] worried that she will not agree to go home with me,” Achieng told Al Jazeera. She believes her mother will never return home. “I fear she might die [at the church].”

Meanwhile in Kisumu, Obura’s family continues to mourn him as they work with Kiarie’s organisation and the police to try and secure a court order allowing them to exhume his remains.

All they want, they say, is to transfer him from the church to his ancestral home to bury him according to Luo culture and traditions.

“We are not interested in a lot of things,” Otieno said. “We just want the body of our son so we can bury him here at home. Just that.”

Ngugi’s work critiqued both British colonialism in Kenya and postcolonial Kenyan society.

Renowned Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o has died at age 87, his family members have announced.

“It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our dad, Ngugi wa Thiong’o,” his daughter Wanjiku Wa Ngugi wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

“He lived a full life, fought a good fight,” she said.

At the time of his death, Ngugi was reportedly receiving kidney dialysis treatments, but his immediate cause of death is still unknown.

Born in Kenya in 1938, Ngugi will be remembered as one of Africa’s most important postcolonial writers. Formative events in Ngugi’s early life included the brutal Mau Mau war that swept British-ruled Kenya in the 1950s.

Ngugi’s work was equally critical of the British colonial era and the postcolonial society that followed Kenya’s independence in 1963. Other topics in his work covered the intersection between language, culture, history, and identity.

Ngugi made a mark for himself in the 1970s when he decided to switch from writing in English to the Kikuyu and Swahili languages – a controversial decision at the time.

“We all thought he was mad… and brave at the same time,” Kenyan writer David Maillu told the AFP news agency.

“We asked ourselves who would buy the books.”

One of his most famous works, “Decolonising the Mind”, was published in 1986 while living abroad. The book argues that it is “impossible to liberate oneself while using the language of oppressors”, AFP reports.

Besides holding the position of acclaimed writer, Ngugi was a prisoner of conscience. In 1977, he was jailed in Kenya for staging a play deemed critical of contemporary society.

He once described the country’s new elite class as “the death of hopes, the death of dreams and the death of beauty”.

In 1982, Ngugi went into self-imposed exile in the UK following a ban on theatre groups and performances in his home country. He later moved to the US, where he worked as a professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. He also continued writing a range of works, including essays, memoirs and novels about Kenya.

Following news of Ngugi’s death, praise for his life and work quickly appeared online.

“My condolences to the family and friends of Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a renowned literary giant and scholar, a son of the soil and great patriot whose footprints are indelible,” Kenya’s opposition leader Martha Karua wrote on X.

“Thank you Mwalimu [teacher] for your freedom writing,” wrote Amnesty International’s Kenya branch on X. “Having already earned his place in Kenyan history, he transitions from mortality to immortality.”

Margaretta wa Gacheru, a sociologist and former student of Ngugi, said the author was a national icon.

“To me, he’s like a Kenyan Tolstoy, in the sense of being a storyteller, in the sense of his love of the language and panoramic view of society, his description of the landscape of social relations, of class and class struggles,” she said.

Last week, Ugandan lawyer Agather Atuhaire was finally set free five days after she was detained by the Tanzanian police for unclear reasons. She was unceremoniously dumped at the Mutukula border crossing between the two countries.

Details of Atuhaire’s condition remain unclear, but a statement from the organisation she works with as well as Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi, who was detained with her, alleged that she was tortured. He himself showed signs of physical abuse after he was also dumped at the Kenya-Tanzania border a day earlier.

For East Africans, Atuhaire and Mwangi’s ordeal has been a painful reminder of just how far democracy in the region has retreated. People organising to resist state excesses have been increasingly facing structural and physical violence with little space for redress.

Mwangi and Atuhaire were among a small group of regional activists and political figures who flew into Tanzania to show solidarity with Tundu Lissu, the leader of the Tanzanian opposition. Lissu is facing several charges, the most grievous among them treason, for comments he allegedly made at a political rally.

But Lissu is not alone in the region in facing reprisals for political action. In neighbouring Uganda, leader of the opposition Kizza Besigye is facing the same charges, based on the same idea that organising and leading opposition against an entrenched political power amounts to treason.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, the aftermath of the 2024 anti-finance bill protests is haunting the country. In the absence of a well organised political opposition, which is stymied by frenetic deal-making and horse-trading, protesters and youth activists have become the country’s unofficial political opposition.

The youth have borne the brunt of political violence during last year’s protests, which killed at least 82 people. Kidnappings and abductions of protesters spiked after the demonstrations, and activist groups alleged that some people remain unaccounted for despite President William Ruto’s assertion to the contrary.

In Burundi, people continue to live under the shadow of police excesses and in fear of the possibility of war with its expansionist neighbours.

In Rwanda, several opposition figures who tried to run against President Paul Kagame were jailed on various charges. The neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo is perennially caught between war and political crisis.

So how did we get to this state of affairs? The simplest answer is that we allowed ourselves to conflate elections with democracy, and the malicious intentions of those who wield power took advantage of that faith. The reality of building robust democratic systems is far more complicated than lining up to vote every four or five years, and real democracy requires round the clock vigilance.

A meaningful democracy requires robust local government, transparent political parties as well as institutional accountability and participation, all of which have been on the retreat in the region in the past two decades.

Power has remained highly centralised in the executive, enabled by the capitulation of legislatures and the “naomba serekali” (“I am requesting of the government”) approach to politics.

Parliaments are empowered by the legitimacy of a popular vote, but they repeatedly submit to the executive. Proof of this can be easily found in the experience of women trying to run for office in the region.

As outlined in a 2018 volume on the Kenyan election that I co-edited, Where Women Are: Gender and the 2017 Kenyan General Election, the weakness begins within political parties, in which candidates must kowtow to a kingpin to gain permission to appear on the ballot. Those who do not are often locked out from competitive electoral cycles. As a result, save for constitutional quotas, women’s participation in electoral politics has declined – a canary in the coalmine of shrinking democratic space.

Meanwhile, parties have mastered the art of managing gender optics as a substitute for real change, reducing debates about democracy to the periodic performance of voting. Thus, Samia Suluhu’s presidency in Tanzania is not a sign of improving democracy but rather that of a political machine that picked the least contentious candidate who would allow the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, to continue managing the country. Similarly, the dominance of women in Rwanda’s parliament is not in itself indicative of progress for women but of the ability of the ruling party to select candidates who are less likely to push back.

Once these candidates are laundered through the political party machine, they enter the legislature more beholden to their political kingpin than to voters. And this is the case whether the kingpin is in government or in the opposition.

In Kenya, opposition candidates like Edwin Sifuna, who vociferously defended the rights of protesters during the June 2024 protests, have become tongue-tied in 2025 because their party kingpin has since struck a deal with Ruto and blind obeisance is the only guaranteed pathway to power in this system.

In Uganda, politicians are bought off with state cars and loans, and in Tanzania, they are silenced by arrests, detentions and disappearances of critics of the state. The net effect is that elections become a performance whose actual impact diminishes rapidly over time.

A quick scan of global politics will affirm that this is not a uniquely East African problem. The same crisis is taking shape in the United States, particularly after the evisceration of the Republican Party by Tea Party politics and of the Democratic Party by careerist politicians.

But the events of the last week show that for East Africa, an extra layer of risk exists because of the unquestioning and blind loyalty of security services to the whims of the state – something the current US administration seeks to build into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The long-term solution to this state of affairs is for ordinary people to become more engaged in localised democratic practices, changing the quality of people who rise up the ranks in politics. Of course, this can be difficult when people are merely trying to survive a hostile political and economic climate, but in the long term, it creates new entry points for civic engagement.

Democracy is strengthened when more people participate in the governance of civic institutions like schools, hospitals, trade unions, cooperatives, neighbourhood associations, and even sports and social clubs – in processes that they can immediately connect to their quality of life.

Elections then become the culmination of four or five years of regular exercises of democracy, not a separate process that floats above the reality of people’s lives.

In parallel, the onus is on the legislators of East Africa to find their teeth and their purpose. Their job is not political survival or the pursuit of political careers. Their job is to defend the people who elected them, to rein in the excesses of the executive and to defend the integrity of the constitution.

Meanwhile, we, the people, should all heed the call of Nigerian public intellectual Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem: “Don’t agonise, organise,” and seek to rebuild democracy in East Africa from the ground up.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Kenya’s role in global environmental diplomacy is becoming more important than ever. Now that climate change is having the harshest effect on vulnerable countries, Kenya has had its share of opportunity to make its environmental work a kind of soft power—both to safeguard its ecosystems and to improve its reputation abroad. Although Kenya may not be the most industrialized or the most economically developed country, it somehow has become a respected voice in global environmental talks. This isn’t by accident. It’s the fruit of decades of struggle for conservation, international partnership in promotion of conservation works, and recognition of the fact that environmental policy can also be utilized to fund foreign policies.

Kenya has a reputation for great natural beauty. From the savannah of the Maasai Mara to the Aberdare Forest, the country is a homeland to some of the world’s most iconic wildlife and ecosystems. Kenya isn’t just a safari destination, though; it’s also one of the countries that has genuinely done its best to protect the environment. This goes back decades. When the U.N. decided to build its global environmental headquarters, it settled on Nairobi. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) still lies there — an extraordinary tribute and a prestigious mark of Kenya’s old environmental credibility. What is so special about Kenya is not the biodiversity itself, but the fact that this state considers it to increase its influence and to earn international goodwill. Put differently, besides serving the conventional diplomacy purposes of Kenya, environmental diplomacy also plays a part in the promotion of public diplomacy, namely, as a device for demonstrating the country to other nations as responsible, peaceful, and willing to cooperate on a global scale. Through sustainable development, conservation, and climate justice, by so doing Kenya is not just making a policy statement; it is very deliberately forming views of itself held by other countries and the international institutions.

Over the recent years, this strategy has become more welcomed by the recently elected presidents of Kenya. For instance, President William Ruto has made it obvious that green growth and environmental protection are at the heart of Kenya’s future. He has attended climate conferences such as COP27 and put Kenya in pole position on renewable energy and adaptation to climate change. Already, the country produces more than three-quarters of the electricity from clean sources such as geothermal, wind, and hydropower—a feat very few rich countries can achieve. This clean energy record enables Kenya to talk the talk and walk the walk on its quest to have other countries act on climate. It is in doing this that Kenya will not only enlarge their voice in climate talks but also build confidence from other nations. This is at the heart of its public diplomacy: presenting to the world that it is behaving in good faith and assuming responsibility towards its future and towards the planet’s future. Environmental diplomacy becomes a space for dialogue and trust development and international recognition. It gives Kenya an opportunity to shape policy but still draw investment, tourists, and partnerships.

Simultaneously, Kenya is doing its best to save its environment from the worst consequences of climate change. The country records regular occurrences of drought, floods, and other extreme weather patterns affecting farming, driving people from their homes, and jeopardizing wildlife. In response, Kenya has launched efforts like national tree-planting campaigns, water conservation projects, and climate-smart farming. These actions not only create domestic resilience but also enhance Kenya’s credibility once talks on global standards begin. If a country talks the talk at home, it receives greater respect in the international arena.

One of the most visible examples of Kenya’s environmental diplomacy influencing others was the hosting of the Africa Climate Summit in 2023. Held in Nairobi, the summit gathered several African leaders to harmonize their climate policies and speak as one voice. The issued Nairobi declaration demanded immediate global reforms on climate finance and on the sharing of technologies. Kenya took advantage of this chance to not only determine continental climate action but also use the platform to present itself as a convening power and thought leader on climate policy. Other countries, such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, and South Africa, associated themselves with Kenya, thus showing that environmental diplomacy can lift a country’s regional floor.

Kenya has received massive green investment in the form of partnerships with countries such as Germany and members of the European Union. Among the major green investments is major renewable energy like the Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant. Germany has acknowledged Kenya’s initiative positively; it has provided the latter with technical and financial support to shift towards the use of cleaner energy. Kenya, at the same time, also succeeded in guiding Chinese investment to greener practices. For example, although there are concerns about the environment concerning the Standard Gauge Railway project, Kenya insists on environmental assessments and green standards so that China’s infrastructural deals are more climate aware. Kenya’s relationship with the United States has also been enhanced through cooperation in the environment. The U.S., via USAID and other bodies, has supported initiatives covering such areas as wildlife conservation, clean energy, and even climate-smart agriculture. This environmental partnership has enhanced Kenya’s image as a reliable friend in East Africa; they have opened more diplomatic and economic doors.

Kenya’s environmental credibility makes bridges for it both to the Western countries and also to the Global South. Through the active promotion of climate justice, particularly at times of significant climate confabulations such as COP27, Kenya has become a voice for the rest of the developing countries that suffer the effects of climate on them. This was evident in Kenya’s support for the establishment of a “Loss and Damage” fund that compensates the vulnerable countries—a call that was later adopted. Kenya is also diversifying its external cooperation from the traditional Western powers. It is collaborating with countries like India and Brazil and other emerging economies to jointly develop green economies. This spreads out Kenya’s alternatives, enhances its diplomatic clout, and argues for a more multipolar cooperation in climate leadership. Once more, this fits into its public diplomacy, as that makes Kenya a welcoming and collaborating nation ready to collaborate with many partners towards common environmental interests. Finally, Kenya’s environmental diplomacy is not only about savages from forests but also about wildlife and carbon emission cutting—it is all about the influence.

Kenya has managed to turn around its environmental activities into instruments of foreign policy and public diplomacy. Involving heavy nations such as Germany, China, the U.S., and Africa’s regional partners, Kenya is defining how other governments see climate justice, clean energy, and sustainable development. It is fighting for global reforms, setting the examples, organizing major summits, and appealing for justice on behalf of developing nations. Kenya’s green leadership is not only doing its environment good; it is a calculated policy to shape global discussions, draw other nations to its angle on climate, and gain respect, confidence, and collaboration in the world. In a nutshell, Kenya’s environmental diplomacy is about transforming the international agenda and (not by force but rather by the values, vision, and responsibility) demonstrating that even the midsized African nation can lead the world.

East African rights groups condemn Tanzania, saying human right activists ‘abandoned’ at border show signs of torture.

A Ugandan human rights activist, arrested in Tanzania after travelling to the country to support an opposition politician at a trial for treason, has been tortured and dumped at the border, according to an NGO.

Ugandan rights group Agora Discourse said on Friday that activist and journalist Agather Atuhaire had been “abandoned at the border by Tanzanian authorities” and showed signs of torture.

The statement echoes reports regarding a Kenyan activist detained at the same time and released a day earlier, and supports complaints of a crackdown on democracy across East Africa.

Atuhaire had travelled to Tanzania alongside Kenyan anticorruption campaigner Boniface Mwangi to support opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who appeared in court on Monday.

Both were arrested shortly after the hearing and held incommunicado.

Tanzanian police had initially told local rights groups that the pair would be deported by air. However, Mwangi was discovered on Thursday on a roadside in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border.

Agora Discourse said it was “relieved to inform the public that Agather has been found”. However, the rights group’s cofounder Jim Spire Ssentongo confirmed to the AFP news agency on Friday that there were “indications of torture”.

‘Worse than dogs’

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been accused of increasing authoritarianism, amid rising concerns regarding democracy across East Africa.

Activists travelling to Lissu’s trail accused Tanzania of “collaborating” with Kenya and Uganda in their “total erosion of democratic principles”.

Several high-profile political arrests have highlighted the rights record of Hassan, who plans to seek re-election in October.

The Tanzanian leader has said that her government is committed to respecting human rights. However, she warned earlier this week that foreign activists would not be tolerated in the country as Lissu appeared in court.

“Do not allow ill-mannered individuals from other countries to cross the line here,” Hassan instructed security services.

Several activists from Kenya, including a former justice minister, said they were denied entry to Tanzania as they tried to travel to attend the trial.

Following his return to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Mwangi said that he and Atuhaire had suffered a brutal experience.

“We were both treated worse than dogs, chained, blindfolded and underwent a very gruesome torture,” he told reporters.

“The Government of Tanzania cannot hide behind national sovereignty to justify committing serious crimes and human rights violations against its own citizens and other East Africans,” the International Commission of Jurists in Kenya said in a statement.