Why rising intolerance is a worrying trend across East Africa

Reports of protests in Tanzania as the East African nation took to the polls on Wednesday highlighted the growing feeling of disenchantment among the region’s citizens, who are concerned about a rise in autocracy.

In unverified clips on social media platforms like X, Tanzanians across different towns are seen staging demonstrations against President Samia Suluhu, who has blocked competition from major opposition parties, with her administration jailing her most formidable rival, Tundu Lissu of the Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema).

Mobilisation for the protests, symbolic in that they were staged to question the legitimacy of the presidential vote, has gone on for weeks, incorporating Tanzanian, Kenyan, and Ugandan activists in a joint clapback against a shrinking democratic space in the region.

As the demos were happening, Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, two Kenyan activists abducted in Uganda early this month after they attended opposition rallies, remained at large. Ugandan authorities denied involvement in their abduction, but rights activists insist they are under state custody.

Activists have claimed to know that Njagi and Oyoo have faced torture and that their health is deteriorating, even as Kenyan authorities largely stay mum on the subject. Yesterday, civil society groups wrote appeals to embassies in the country to push the authorities on the whereabouts of the two.

The pair’s abduction was the latest in a string of cross-border abductions of state critics, seemingly with the blessings of aggrieved administrations. Such incidents, and other forms of abuse of civil liberties, have grabbed the attention of international observers.

The Kenyan government has, for instance, been under scrutiny for abducting state critics since last year, when youth-led protests sparked by proposed tax increases convulsed the country. On Tuesday, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, also the Foreign Affairs Minister, responded to concerns by United Nations special rapporteurs about arbitrary arrests, deportations, and curtailing media freedoms.

They include the arrest of rights activists Mark Amiani, Mulingwa Nzau, Francis Mutunge, and Boniface Mwangi; the deportation of Martin Mavenjina, a Ugandan national; attacks on the Kenya Human Rights Commission; and the shutdown of media houses for their broadcast of the June 25, 2025, commemorative protests.

In a statement, Mudavadi said the matters were either under investigation or awaiting “adjudication by independent constitutional bodies.”

“Kenya takes the concerns raised in your joint communication seriously, both as a member of the UN Human Rights Council and as a stable democracy that upholds freedoms of speech, press, fair trial, and peaceful assembly, including demonstration, picketing, and petitioning,” Mudavadi wrote to the special rapporteurs.

One of them, Mary Lawlor, had lamented on X that their joint statement, made public days ago, had not been responded to.

For months, there have been concerns about growing dictatorial tendencies in the region, as respective governments quash dissent — a situation that governance analyst Tom Mboya said was caused by reasons that include a “shift in our demographics.”

“We have a growing youthful population who are not ready to accept the leadership situation in their countries, and that is manifesting in the protests we saw in Kenya in 2024 and 2025, and are likely to see in Uganda next year,” said Mboya. “The governments are trying to use autocratic methods to restore the status quo.”

President William Ruto has come under attack for the killing of protesters by the police, whose backs he pats, abductions, and enacting laws that critics warn curtail fundamental freedoms.

In Uganda, opposition politician Kizza Besigye is locked up facing treason charges — the same accusations levelled against Lissu in Tanzania. Like Njagi and Oyoo, Besigye was abducted in a foreign country. The veteran Ugandan opposition figure, President Yoweri Museveni’s long-time challenger, was taken by armed men in Nairobi in November last year.