Tanzania shut down on July 7 under a heavy deployment of police and soldiers across the major cities of Dar es Salaam, Arusha, and Mwanza after authorities arrested dozens of people accused of heeding online calls for protests that day. Those arrested included members of Tanzania’s main opposition party, CHADEMA, whose leader Tundu Lissu has been imprisoned on trumped-up treason charges since April 2025. The arrests followed a June 26 ban on political rallies and repeated statements by authorities smearing calls for protests as incitement to violence. In a speech on July 9, Tanzanian dictator Samia Suluhu Hassan likened protest to terrorism.
In Kenya, police sealed off Nairobi’s Central Business District with roadblocks and barricades and declared the protests unlawful, despite organizers notifying security agencies in advance as required by law. At least 10 people were arbitrarily arrested in Nairobi, and in Mombasa, police obstructed a peaceful procession.
Kenyan authorities violently suppressed earlier pro-democracy protests that took place on June 25, where the Kenyan Human Rights Commission documented 361 arbitrary arrests, seven enforced disappearances, and the detention of 18 human rights defenders and two journalists. In Tanzania, the memory of security forces’ killings of hundreds — if not thousands — of people protesting the results of sham October 2025 elections lingers.
