Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s main opposition party, CHADEMA, has warned that rape and sexual harassment are being used as weapons of political repression in the country, urging stakeholders joint action to end the trend.
The warning was issued during a joint meeting of CHADEMA’s regional chairpersons, held online on January 16, 2026. The party remains unable to convene physically due to a court order issued on June 10, 2025, which imposed restrictions on party activities.
“There is an issue that is not talked about enough, and through this statement, we Regional Chairpersons, are asking that it be made public so it can be discussed and action taken. Rape and sexual harassment as political weapons: the meeting of chairpersons has identified and strongly condemned the use of rape and sexual abuse as political weapons employed by state security organs,” William Mungai, Chairperson of CHADEMA in the Iringa region, read the statement on behalf of other leaders.
The regional chairperson meeting is part of activities by the party ahead of its 33 years commemoration on January 21. In the meeting the leaders affirmed party’s post-election position, in which CHADEMA declared the October 29 election illegitimate. According to the statement, regional chairpersons said witness accounts indicate that the alleged incidents are taking place inside police stations, in bushes, and in secret safe houses.
CHADEMA’s claims come amid legal action by two regional activists, Boniface Mwangi and Agatha Atuhaire, who are suing Tanzania at the East African Court of Justice over allegations of sexual torture. The activists were arrested on May 19, 2025, while in Tanzania to attend the treason hearing of opposition figure Tundu Lissu.
Speaking on June 2, 2025, the activists said they were sexually tortured during their detention by Tanzania’s security organs. During a press conference in which Mwangi broke down in tears, he said that he was ordered to strip naked, was hanged and had his hands and legs tied together, and that his captors inserted objects into his private parts.
Agatha Atuhaire, on the other hand, said her captors forcefully removed her clothes, leaving her naked, tied her hands and legs together, hung her, inserted objects into her rectum, and smeared her with her feces. Atuhaire and Mwangi said the acts were filmed as they occurred and that they were threatened that the videos would be published online if they ever spoke out.
Responding to a submission to the UN Human Rights Council on June 18, 2025, Tanzania’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Abdallah Posi, said that the claims by Mwangi and Agatha were highly doubtful.
“Although these claims against the government are highly doubtful, we take the allegations of torture, sexual abuse, and malpractices very seriously,” Posi said. “That is why the government is currently investigating, and if established, the concerned will be held accountable,” he added on June 18, 2025.
Sexual Harrassment and Taking Photos of Victims
The allegations by Mwangi and Atuhaire are not isolated. On April 25, 2025, CHADEMA’s Makumbusho street leader, Shaban Kirita Moyo, recounted how he was arrested by police at Kisutu Court while going to attend Tundu Lissu’s court hearing and was taken to a secret location where he was tortured and sexually harassed.
Moyo was among several CHADEMA members arrested that day and taken to different locations, including bushes, where they were tortured for attending the treason case involving Lissu. He recounted his ordeal during a press conference on the following day:
“After I was arrested, I was taken to a white police pickup truck. They picked me up and took me to the Gymkhana grounds, where there was a Noah vehicle parked. They told me to get out, and I left in that Noah. We traveled for a very long time, and when we arrived, the gate was opened, and I was taken inside a house that I do not know,” Moyo recounted during a press conference on April 25, 2025.
READ: Kisutu Court April 24 Fiasco: Epitome of Impunity and Tanzania’s Police Brutality
He continued: “They stripped me of all my clothes until I was completely naked. After stripping me naked, they began beating me with sticks. They lifted my legs and bent them, then started beating the soles of my feet. They beat the soles of my feet very badly. Afterwards, they bent me over and beat me severely on the buttocks and on the back.”
“Then they took me out and led me to another place, where they told me, ‘Hold this wall here.’ They said, ‘Stand properly,’ and they began taking pictures of me while I was naked. They took pictures, and when they finished, they told me to turn around and take more pictures. Then they told me, ‘Now lie on down, we want to do some things to you.’ They said, ‘Lie down, turn over,’” Moyo explained.
After the ordeal, Moyo said he was dumped along the roadside the same day, where a good Samaritan assisted him.
On October 20, 2024, the Publicity Secretary of CHADEMA’s Women’s Wing, Aisha Machano, told the ordeal she experienced after being abducted on October 19, 2024, by individuals who claimed to be police officers in Kibiti District. Machano said she was taken to a forest and interrogated over internal protests in which CHADEMA women recorded themselves burning Vitenge fabrics.
“As the questioning and beatings continued, they told me to take off my clothes. One of them came and unlocked the handcuffs. After unlocking them, I was wearing a headscarf, so they first removed the blindfold. It was dark, so I couldn’t see them, but they had phones and were recording as they questioned me,” Machano recounted.
“They undressed me and took pictures, telling me that if I ever held a press conference to show the scars, they would find me and ‘finish me off.’ They also threatened to publish my naked images online,” she added.
The kitenge fabrics that she was interrogated about, were gifts from President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who had attended CHADEMA’s Women’s Day event as a special guest in March 2023. On September 30, 2024, CHADEMA’s Women’s Wing held a press conference protesting the abduction and killing of its leaders, during which the women burned the gifted fabrics, many of which bore the President’s image.
Other Claims
In another incident in 2023, Dodoma resident Kalamba Ramadhani Mnenge recounted how he was tortured and sexually harassed by police during interrogation.
“They took me to a house and stripped me naked,” Mnenge said. “They handcuffed my legs and arms again and left me hanging through a piece of iron bar. One of the officers was drinking water while occasionally pouring it on my naked buttocks.”
“They beat me heavily on different parts of my body,” he continued. “They hit me on the chest, stomach and on my penis. They all hurt badly as we currently speak. They beat me until I became unconscious, and blood was dripping out of my nose, and took me outside to get some fresh air.”
Following investigations that included Mnenge’s case, the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) reported that some police stations in Tanzania are being used specifically to torture suspects during interrogations before transferring them elsewhere.
The Commission recommended the installation of CCTV cameras in police stations, particularly at station counters (CROs), to monitor interactions involving detainees and the public. In Mnenge’s case, police had reported that they had carried out an investigation of the issue and taken appropriate steps
Recently, CHADEMA’s prominent figure, Godbless Lema, also reported that a senior police officer ordered him to be stripped naked during his arrest on November 8, 2025, he explained that the order was not carried out following intervention by another officer.
“When I was arrested by the Arusha Police and taken to Dar es Salaam, at the Tourism Police Station in Arusha, the OCD ordered me to step off the vehicle and began attacking me with extreme brutality,” Lema narrated on his X page.
“She ordered that my clothes be removed while holding pepper spray, and she wanted to spray to my private parts. I struggled with all my strength while my hands were cuffed. The handcuffs were so tight that I felt they might cut into my hands,” he continued.
“When I reached the limit of my strength, in a tired voice, I said, ‘I don’t think I deserve this brutality. Do whatever you want.’ Then another voice came from outside, which I think may have been from a higher-ranking officer, saying, ‘Lema should be returned to the vehicle immediately.”
In their joint statement, CHADEMA regional chairpersons called on human rights bodies to take joint action to investigate allegations of sexual torture and harassment and to pursue legal cases. They emphasized that even in times of conflict, rape and sexual violence are unacceptable.
