Tanzania human rights defenders call for legal protection

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania does not have a legal framework to shield human rights defenders from threats associated with their job.

This was laid bare yesterday by the National Coordinator of the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC), Onesmo Olengurumwa, who painted a worrying picture of the challenges faced by those defending the rights of others.

"If human rights defenders are not protected, who will protect the people... Human rights defenders face harassment, arbitrary arrests, and even abductions, yet there are no laws to protect them,” he said.

He noted that as Tanzania marks 40 years since the Bill of Rights was incorporated into the Constitution, one would expect that those championing human rights would be shielded by law.

THRDC statistics reveal that in the past 10 years, human rights defenders in Tanzania have faced 513 incidents of harassment, intimidation and victimisation.

This includes arrests by police, being labelled as troublemakers in courtrooms and experiencing non-implementation of court decisions related to human rights issues.

“Judges see human rights defenders as disruptors rather than protectors of justice. Even when court rulings favour human rights causes, those judgments are often ignored,” he explained.

Perhaps the most alarming revelation from Olengurumwa is the spike in abductions of human rights defenders.

According to him, since the start of 2024 alone, 65 abductions have been recorded by the coalition.

“Over the past decade, there have been more than 250 cases of abductions, most of them being activists, politicians and human rights defenders, with no known investigations or prosecutions to hold the perpetrators accountable,” he explained.

He added: "People are afraid to stand up for human rights because they know what awaits them — harassment, arrest, or abduction — with no one to protect them. This silence is deadly."

Furthermore, funding for local human rights advocacy has dwindled as international donors now prioritize supporting their in-country offices over grassroots CSOs.

For her part, a veteran human rights defender and former director of the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), Dr Hellen Kijo Bisimba, echoed the concerns by calling for the establishment of a national human rights commission to oversee the protection of defenders and ensure their safety.

“Human rights advocacy is a long-term struggle. We’ve made some gains over the years, but setbacks like this are disheartening,” she said.

She highlighted the importance of sustained public pressure on the government to introduce legal protections for human rights defenders.

“CSOs must remain vocal. They should not be silent when they see violations happening. Silence encourages impunity, and that is dangerous,” she said.

On top of that, the former president of the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS), Rugemeleza Nshala lamented how hard-won gains from the 1980s to the early 2000s are now being lost fuelled by the erosion of human rights protections.

“Back then, we witnessed substantial progress in human rights, but now those victories are being undone. Legal loopholes are being exploited to limit people's access to justice,” he said.

He warned that the manipulation of the legal system to serve narrow interests threatens the entire framework of justice and accountability in Tanzania.

“The legal system is being bent to suit certain agendas, and when that happens, the people lose trust in the courts and in justice itself,” he asserted.