Kenya classified with Afghanistan over cross-border crackdown as regional repression worsens

Kenya’s position as a regional diplomatic hub and traditional refuge for exiled activists is under renewed scrutiny following a report by Freedom House placing Nairobi at the centre of a growing web of cross-border repression in East Africa.

The ‘Collaboration and Resistance: Tracking Transnational Repression in 2025’ report indicates that governments in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are increasingly collaborating to track, detain and forcibly return critics beyond their borders, especially during elections periods.

“In East Africa, Kenyan, Ugandan, and Tanzanian authorities helped each other track, detain, and return activists in an effort to impede civic mobilisation ahead of and during elections,” the report read.

The study categorises Kenya alongside Afghanistan, Benin, Georgia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe as six new states identified as using tactics of transnational repression.

As of last year, it reports, at least 54 governments, or more than a quarter of all countries in the world, have tried to silence dissidents abroad.

This trend is a noticeable shift from isolated incidents to a more coordinated regional security approach that risks eroding civil liberties across East Africa, according to the report.

It indicates that governments in East Africa increasingly work together to target activists across borders.

Last May, Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi admitted that Kenyan security agencies assisted Ugandan agents in the November 2024 rendition of Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye.

At the time, Besigye’s People’s Front for Freedom party was preparing for the 2026 Ugandan election. It later withdrew from the contest.

Besigye had been in Kenya to attend the book launch of a local activist when he disappeared.

Initially the Kenyan government had denied helping with his abduction, but eventually admitted its role.

Foreign Affairs officials defended the joint operation by pointing to Nairobi’s “national interest” and the trade relationship between the two countries. Besigye is still on trial facing allegations of treason in Uganda.

Again, in July 2024, vocal activist Mwabili Mwagodi, who participated in the 2024 Gen Z protests, briefly disappeared in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, shortly after criticising Kenyan security forces online.

“This came only two months after Tanzanian authorities assaulted and then deported several Kenyan and Ugandan activists and former government officials who had arrived in Tanzania to monitor the trial of opposition leader Tundu Lissu,” the report says.

Kenyan activists Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo were detained in Uganda for 38 days in October after attending a rally for opposition leader Bobi Wine.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni confirmed they were arrested by security forces for being “experts in riots” before their release in last November. They said they were tortured during their secret detention. 

In January last year, Tanzanian activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai — a prominent critic of President Samia Suluhu Hassan — was allegedly abducted in Nairobi by armed men believed to be linked to Tanzanian security agencies.

Sarungi, who had been living in exile in Kenya since 2020, said she was assaulted and interrogated. She said her attackers attempted to access sensitive information on her phone.

The 2024 and 2025 developments, Freedom House says, made it clear that Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan law enforcement and intelligence agencies are increasingly coordinating to silence dissent.

“This kind of cross-border intimidation and authoritarian collaboration is dangerous because it limits opportunities for civic solidarity and can prop up embattled incumbents,” the report read.

It further indicated that Kenya has become increasingly unsafe for dissidents from other countries in East Africa. Amidst its own government crackdown on Gen Z protests in 2024, the Kenyan government oversaw the forced return of dozens of Ugandan activists to their homeland.

Once widely seen as a safe haven for dissidents fleeing repression in neighbouring states, the country is now listed among governments engaging in transnational repression, a global category that includes at least 54 states.

One of the most prominent cases cited in the report is Besigye’s, which has drawn regional solidarity among activists and lawyers.

Freedom House argues that the Ugandan opposition leader’s case is not an outlier but part of a broader pattern of Kenya-Uganda security cooperation aimed at curbing dissent ahead of Uganda’s 2026 election.

These incidents point to what the report describes as “authoritarian collaboration”, a system in which neighbouring governments actively assist each other in suppressing dissent.

The report also highlights how global policing tools can be drawn into these dynamics. In one case, Kenyan authorities briefly detained Sudanese opposition figure Yassir Arman at Nairobi’s airport based on an Interpol Red Notice issued at the request of Sudan. He was released after the notice was deemed politically motivated.

The Freedom House report echoes findings by the UN that raised concerns over the Kenyan government’s handling of the demonstrations.