- Authorities across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Sudan harassed activists and government critics in spirited attempt to suppress dissent in 2024.
- Human Rights Watch says harassment, intimidation, and arrests of journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition figures intensified.
- In Kenya, senior government officials including President William Ruto threatened the courts for making decisions unfavourable to his administration.
Millions of civilians across countries in East Africa bore the brunt of human rights violations orchestrated by either government security organs or armed groups in 2024, further deteriorating the region’s respect for human rights, a new report by Washington-based Human Rights Watch states.
According to the group’s World Report 2025, authorities in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Sudan continued to harass activists and government critics in their spirited attempt to suppress dissent during the year under review.
“Armed forces and armed groups in Sudan and Ethiopia have deliberately targeted civilians and critical infrastructure with near total impunity,” said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Regional and international bodies should urgently take concrete measures to help protect civilians and increase scrutiny of those responsible for serious violations.”
Sudan, Ethiopia civilians bearing brunt of human rights abuses
The report notes that warring parties in Sudan and Ethiopia led to the killing and injury of thousands of civilians in the two countries last year. In Sudan over 12 million people have been displaced even as the war between government forces against the Rapid Support Forces militia group triggered damage and destruction of civilian infrastructure such as bridges, schools and hospitals.
Human Rights Group added that the warring parties’ willful obstruction of humanitarian assistance in Sudan has continued to worsen the famine gripping millions of people.
In neighbouring Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch observed that government forces “committed widespread attacks against medical professionals, patients, and health facilities” in the troubled Amhara region.
Further, government agencies in Addis Ababa suspended the operations of several human rights organizations while also intensifying the “harassment, intimidation, and arrests of journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition figures, forcing many into exile.”
In Eritrea, the government continued to subject its population to indefinite forced conscriptions, and increased repression of its citizens abroad, World Report 2025 noted.
Kenya’s human rights record on the decline
For Kenya, the script was no different as authorities were accussed of running abduction squads and directing the killing of dozens of peaceful protesters with impunity. What’s more, Human Rights Watch said that senior government officials in Nairobi, including President William Ruto threatened to close the operations of civil society and donor organizations for allegedly supporting the protests.
Stung by swelling protests against his administration, Dr. Ruto accused US-based Ford Foundation, accusing it of financing both the protests and several civil society organizations such as Kenya Human Rights Commission and Katiba Institute, whom claimed were responsible of organizing the nationwide protests.
In July last year, chairman of the Public Benefit Organizations Regulatory Authority, Mwambu Mabonga, said the authority had asked the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to investigate at least 16 CSOs for allegedly operating illegally and for receiving money from the Ford Foundation to fund the protests.
“The authorities failed to address the socio-economic causes of protests and, instead, harassed, intimidated, and arrested protest leaders, activists and civil society groups accused of supporting the protests. President William Ruto publicly threatened the courts for making decisions unfavorable to his administration. The authorities have rarely investigated or prosecuted law enforcement officers implicated in human rights abuses,” explained Human Rights Watch in part.
On June 18, Kenya experienced one of the worst street protests in recent history as youth-led revolt against high taxes as contained in the Finance Bill 2024 triggered distress across the country.
Protesters accused Dr. Ruto’s government of agreeing to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF) punitive revenue targets, a move that they said would hurt the poor further amid decreasing incomes due to other statutory charges already in place.
The protests, which were led largely by Kenyans between the ages of 18 and 35, popularly known as Gen Z, culminated in the breach of security in Kenya’s Parliament on June 25 when a part of the premises was set ablaze.
At first, protesters in the country opposed taxes on goods and services such as bread, sanitary pads, and mobile money transfers—services that are used by millions of informal workers. Later, the protests evolved to include demands for Dr. Ruto to move with speed and address waste in his government, mega corruption and the need to fix neglect of public services.
In Kenya, police shot directly into protesters. Abductions ongoing
“Police shot directly into crowds, killing protesters and bystanders. The authorities have continued to track down people believed to be protest leaders or one of the estimated 3,000 protesters involved in the parliament invasion. Several of these people have either been arrested or abducted by suspected security agents then forcefully disappeared,” Human Rights Watch report notes in part.
Additionally, Kenya’s human rights record deteriorated in 2024 due to threats directed at the Judiciary by senior government officials, including the president. Dr. Ruto is on record threatening people who filed court petitions to challenge the Finance Bill 2023 and the 2023 Housing Levy.
“President Ruto accused the petitioners, and what he described as corrupt courts that listen and give them favourable decisions, of sabotaging his government. The president’s close allies threatened to deal with judges they accused of colluding with petitioners to sabotage the president’s development agenda,” the Washington-based group explained.
Still on unbecoming conduct by senior government officials on court decisions, Human Rights Watch say Dr. Ruto ignored the court’s decision halting his administration’s move to deploy Kenyan police to Haiti without following due process.
Dr. Ruto declared that “the courts will not stop me,” and proceeded to approved the deployment of police personnel to Haiti late last year even as a petition filed in court raised several concerns about the process.
South Sudan’s pace of reform slow, marked by rights abuses
During the year under review, Human Rights Watch said authorities in South Sudan severely restricted the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and movement.
President Salva Kiir’s government failed to meet conditions to hold general elections scheduled for December 2024, and postponed the crucial polls for another two years. The rights group observed that the implementation of the 2018 South Sudan peace deal and of reforms was slow, fueled violence and perpetuated by persistent rights abuses.
“Journalists, activists, critics, and political opposition members faced intimidation, arbitrary arrest and detention, and torture and other ill-treatment. The parliament approved a law retaining broad powers for the abusive National Security Service (NSS), despite efforts by some lawmakers to review its most contentious provisions. It also approved legislation for truth and reparations processes but failed to establish the Hybrid Court.”
Additionally, conflict between armed groups in Upper Nile and southern Central Equatoria saw the displacement of civilians and serious abuses. Intercommunal violence in parts of Warrap, Abyei, Northern Bar El Ghazal, and Jonglei intensified.
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Uganda’s crackdown on LGBTQ, free speech on social media
In Uganda, historically marginalized communities faced further erosion of their rights during the period under review. Uganda’s human rights environment remains restrictive, Human Rights Watch noted, adding that the government continued clamping down on free speech, peaceful assembly, and dissent.
During the year, Uganda’s Constitutional Court upheld Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023, a piece of legislation that reinforces discrimination and imposes punitive measures against the LGBT community.
Furthermore, free speech remained constrained in the country. For instance, on July 10, a magistrate sentenced Edward Awebwa to six years in prison for insulting President Yoweri Museveni and his family on video-sharing platform TikTok.
The authorities charged Awebwa, 24, with hate speech and spreading “misleading and malicious” information about President Museveni, his wife, and his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba who is a senior military head.
In Uganda, “environmental defenders and anti-fossil fuel activists have routinely faced threats and arbitrary arrests for raising concerns over the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and other fossil fuel projects,” the report adds.
Forced relocation of Maasai, abuses in Tanzania
An initiative by Tanzania to forcibly relocate Indigenous Maasai communities from their ancestral lands in Ngorongoro, compounded by clampdowns on the political opposition further dented the country’s human rights record last year.
The Maasai communities were forcibly relocated by the government to Handeni district, Tanga region, about 600 kilometers away, with little or no consultation. A Human Rights Watch survey in July established that the restrictions, including access to cultural sites and grazing areas, and a ban on growing crops, have negatively impacted the affected people’s lives and livelihoods, forcing many to accept relocation.
In August last year, however, President Samia Suluhu Hassan directed authorities to lift restrictions on some of those services following a peaceful protest by tens of thousands of Maasai.
Overall, the 12 months to December 2024 saw people in Tanzania experience continued restrictions on free speech, including increased control on social media usage and arrest of critics under cybercrime laws, Human Rights Watch said.
It added, “Tanzania lacks robust data protection legislation, while lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights are suppressed online and through violence. Although child protection laws have been reformed, they still fail to adequately address corporal punishment and child marriage.”
Since February 2024, police have been implicated in the killing of at least six people, with several others injured, during clashes near the North Mara Gold Mine in Tarime district. Police accused the victims of “invading the mine” and engaging in illegal small-scale mining. Police have made no arrests related to these abuses.
