Human rights lawyers and activists have vowed to take the government of Tanzania to court over violations of human rights and freedoms.

The activists from Uganda and Kenya had traveled to Tanzania to attend a court session in which Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu was arraigned to face treason charges that the opposition says are fabricated and politically motivated.

The lawyers and activities included Kenya’s former Justice Minister, Martha Karua; Ugandan human rights activist Agather Atuhaire; Kenyan human rights activist Boniface Mwangi; and others.

While Martha Karua was shortly detained by the Tanzanian authorities and later deported, Atuhaire and Mwangi were held for a few days, allegedly tortured before they were transported and dumped near the borders of their respective countries.

Their arrest and detention sparked public outrage in East Africa, with many human rights defenders pressuring the Tanzanian authorities to free them.

Today, Kato Tumusiime, a lawyer who had traveled with the Ugandan delegation, narrated how the situation unfolded. Tumusiime told reporters in Kampala that the Ugandan and Kenyan delegations consisted of about 20 people, but their stay was cut short, with 11 members arrested and deported to their respective countries.

“We were staying at Serena Hotel in Dar es Salaam, and we left Serena to attend the court session, and after the court session, we returned back to the hotel. As we were having lunch, that is when people in plain clothes came to our table and demanded to arrest one of us. Surprisingly, they were shocked that we could ask them questions about why they were arresting one of us. They were shocked, and the man was very angry,” Tumusiime narrated.

He added that although the arrest did not seem harsh due to the nature of the place where they were having lunch, what followed later was absolute violence on the arrested persons.

“Whatever happened after that was violence, torture, and all the rest.”

Tumusiime demanded an apology from the government of Tanzania and announced that they will file a case against President Samia Suluhu’s government for violating their rights.

“We want an apology from the Tanzanian government to these individuals and to the countries where they come from, to even us members of the solidarity that had moved with our colleagues. We are going to discuss the legal actions that we are going to take against the Tanzanian government in its capacity for the violation of human rights mistreating citizens of the East African Community, which is a violation of the East African Community Treaty and other internationally recognizable instruments that it undertook to protect the human rights freedoms,” he said.

As they slept in custody, a tough-talking President Samia Suluhu said the Tanzanian government would not allow individuals who have destabilized their countries to do the same to Tanzania.