Activist drugged, kidnapped in Kenya — rescued in border rendition scare

Nairobi – A Tanzanian human rights activist was abducted in Kenya but rescued before being taken across the border, Amnesty International said on Monday.

Mshabaha Mshabaha Hamza has been one of the loudest critics of the violent crackdown on protests by Tanzanian security forces during elections in October.

An estimated 2,000 people were killed by security forces under cover of an internet blackout, according to the opposition and rights groups. The government has yet to release a promised report into the crackdown.

Hamza, who has been in exile in Kenya for about four years, was grabbed and bundled into a car on Sunday by three men, Amnesty said in a statement.

The rights group said Hamza resisted his attackers and that he was dumped “drugged and injured” at Lukenya in Machakos county, around an hour outside the capital Nairobi.

Police responded “promptly”, Amnesty said, and intercepted the vehicle of the alleged kidnappers – two Kenyans and a Tanzanian.

Amnesty told AFP the suspects had been promised payment to deliver Hamza to the Kenya-Tanzania border.

It said the attack “appears to have been a violent, premeditated abduction and forceful rendition to Tanzania”.

“The work (Hamza) does of documenting human rights abuses is a big threat to the Tanzanian government,” said Mwanasi Ahmed, coordinator of the rights group Pan‑African Solidarity Network, of which Hamza is a member.

“We have seen a lot of cross-border repression,” Ahmed added.

Tanzania’s information minister did not respond to a request for comment from AFP, nor did Kenya’s police and interior ministry.

Amnesty has previously warned of a “growing and worrying trend of transnational repression” in east Africa, with Kenya accused of allowing foreign governments to kidnap their citizens and forcibly extradite them in violation of international law.

In November 2024, Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye was abducted in Kenya and taken to a military court in Uganda, where he is facing treason charges.

In January 2025, renowned Tanzanian rights activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai was kidnapped on the streets of Nairobi but released following a swift intervention by rights groups that triggered a media uproar.

Kenyan activists have also been kidnapped in Uganda and Tanzania and later released at the borders.