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.
Atuhaire had travelled to Tanzania alongside Kenyan anticorruption campaigner Boniface Mwangi to support opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who appeared in court on Monday. Both of them 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.
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been accused of increasing authoritarianism, amid rising concerns regarding democracy across East Africa. Several high-profile political arrests have highlighted the rights record of Hassan, who plans to seek re-election in October.
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