TEARGAS AND TYRANNY: THE EAST AFRICAN UNION OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND FRAGILE EGOS

 Image by Markus Spiske from Pexels

Abstract

This article critically examines the rising trend of authoritarian repression in East Africa, focusing on Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, where political leaders have increasingly deployed state violence, censorship, and psychological intimidation to suppress dissent. Through recent case studies—including the tear-gassing of schoolgirls in Kenya, the abduction of Kizza Besigye by Uganda, and the arrest of Tanzanian politician Tundu Lissu—the paper argues that the region is experiencing a coordinated assault on civil liberties under the guise of democracy. Central to this repression is the fragility of the political egos at the helm: leaders whose intolerance for critique mirrors the paranoia of historical despots such as Stalin, Hitler, and Pinochet. The author contends that East Africa's ruling elites, like their 20th-century counterparts, fear not armed rebellion but the subversive power of art, protest, and satire. It concludes that unless citizens and institutions confront this creeping autocracy, the region risks entrenching a culture where fear replaces freedom and conformity is enforced through state violence disguised as governance.

Teargas and Tyranny: The East African Union of Human Rights Violations and Fragile Egos

Are all the three East African countries’ leaders reading from the same script of harming and silencing political dissidents?

On Wednesday, Tanzanian police arrested the leading opposition leader, Tundu A. Lissu, after he addressed a rally—no warrant, no explanation, no procedural fairness.^[1] On Thursday, he was charged with treason a few months to the election date. In Uganda, Dr. Kizza Besigye was abducted while in Kenya in November and forcefully transferred to Kampala.^[2] He was eventually charged with treason, a few months to the election date. In Kenya, on Wednesday, former Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala was tear-gassed and barred from overseeing the rehearsal of the Butere Girls High School’s play Chaos of War, a performance that daringly critiques state brutality.^[3] On Thursday, the girls were forced to stage the play at 7.30 a.m. with no audience and no cameras. They chose to stage a walkout in protest. In June 2024, President Ruto described the Gen Z peaceful protestors as dangerous and treasonous criminals.^[4]

Across the region, political spaces are shrinking rapidly. In Tanzania, hundreds have allegedly disappeared after criticizing President Samia Suluhu Hassan.^[5] In Uganda, the National Unity Platform (NUP) opposition party continues to suffer under a barrage of unlawful detentions and abductions.^[6] In Kenya, youth activists involved in the anti-Finance Bill protests of June 2024 were abducted, tortured, and threatened.^[7] What binds these three countries today appears not to be just geography or economic cooperation under the East African Community—but a shared, disturbing contempt for dissent and a creeping normalisation of authoritarianism.

It is almost comical—if not tragic—that in 2025, three grown adults wielding the might of nations still crumble under the weight of mere words. President Samia Suluhu Hassan, General Yoweri Museveni, and President William Ruto preside over governments that claim to be democratic yet respond to criticism like spoiled emperors scorned at court.^[8] Their egos are so fragile that even a high school play (Echoes of War), a tweet, or a protest song triggers the full force of the state. If these leaders were half as committed to governance as they are to silencing dissent, their countries would be thriving democracies by now. Their reaction to critique is so violently disproportionate, one would think they rule by divine right rather than democratic mandate. Every chant, placard, or political rally is met with riot gear and repression, revealing not power, but insecurity draped in state regalia. As Selwyne Duke once mused, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”^[9] And indeed, these leaders hate truth-tellers with an intensity only explainable by the hollowness of their own narratives.

What we are witnessing is not strength but the insecurity of men terrified of mirrors. For leaders who boast of their popular mandates, they appear awfully allergic to the opinions of the very people who elected them. Like the emperor Caligula, who once declared "Let them hate me, so long as they fear me," these modern-day autocrats hide their inadequacy behind riot shields, surveillance, and propaganda. And yet, no amount of teargas or censorship can deodorize the stench of fear seeping from State Houses in Dodoma, Kampala, and Nairobi. To rule through fear is not to rule at all—it is to govern like shadows terrified of the sun. James Baldwin once wrote, “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose,”^[10] but perhaps the inverse is just as true: the most pitiful creation is a leader who has everything, yet is terrified of losing control over public opinion. In silencing critics, these presidents expose their greatest weakness—an allergy to accountability and a fear that the people may finally see through the façade. One wonders: if criticism from students, poets, and pastors rattles them this much, what monsters lurk in their own minds? Kids?

In Tanzania, the trajectory of repression has been consistent since the era of the late President John Pombe Magufuli. While some hoped that President Samia Suluhu would mark a new dawn of democracy and inclusivity, early signs of her leadership suggested otherwise.^[11] Although she released some political prisoners and allowed exiled opposition figures to return, this proved superficial. By early 2023, the same tactics of intimidation had resumed.^[12] Tundu Lissu, who had survived an assassination attempt in 2017 and spent years in exile, returned to Tanzania in January 2023 to contest the political space once more. However, he has faced relentless harassment from the police and state agencies.^[13] His rallies are disrupted, permits denied, and his supporters arrested. The arbitrary arrest on April 10, 2025, without a warrant, smacks of a state machinery intolerant of scrutiny.^[14] Moreover, human rights organisations such as the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) in Dar es Salaam have documented hundreds of enforced disappearances since 2021, particularly targeting critics of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party and journalists reporting on corruption and police brutality.^[15]

Uganda which has long been labelled as a "military democracy", has deepened its descent into outright autocracy under President Yoweri Museveni. In power since 1986, Museveni's regime has increasingly relied on a blend of constitutional manipulation and brute force to suppress opponents.^[16] The fate of Dr. Kizza Besigye is emblematic. A former ally turned opponent, Besigye has endured arrests, house detentions, tear gas attacks, and multiple court battles. Besigye was kidnapped in Nairobi, where he had been meeting diaspora supporters, and secretly driven to Kampala by military operatives and held incommunicado at a military barracks in Nakasongola.^[17]

Such extrajudicial cross-border operations represent a frightening new precedent in East Africa. It recalls the 2018 abduction of Rwanda’s opposition figure Paul Rusesabagina from Dubai to Kigali,^[18] or even the earlier 2017 deportation of Miguna Miguna from Kenya to Canada.^[19] Uganda’s record under Museveni also includes the November 2020 massacre of over 50 people following the arrest of opposition MP Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine.^[20] The violence against NUP supporters has not ceased since. Hundreds of young people in Kamwokya, Luweero, and other NUP strongholds have been abducted, some never to return. Parliamentarians like Hon. Francis Zaake and Hon. Allan Ssewanyana have been tortured, some left with permanent injuries.^[21] The Uganda Human Rights Commission, once a bastion of justice, now functions more as an apologist than an arbiter of justice.

Kenya, for its part, masks its repression under a democratic veneer. Boasting one of Africa’s most progressive constitutions and a vibrant judiciary, it has long stood out as a beacon in the region. Yet beneath this façade, Kenya too is sliding into illiberalism. The June 2024 maandamano protests against the controversial Finance Bill exposed the state’s increasing intolerance for civic expression.^[22] Thousands of youth—most notably Gen Z activists—took to the streets of Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa.^[23] Their slogans were not just about tax injustice, but about the broader erosion of hope, employment, and government accountability. The response from the state was brutal. Live bullets, water cannons, and mass arrests were the order of the day.^[24] According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, at least 36 protestors were killed and over 500 arrested between June and August 2024.^[25]

Worse still, there were credible reports of abductions allegedly carried out by the DCI, NIS and other shadowy security units. Youths were picked up from their homes in the dead of night, driven around blindfolded, beaten, and dumped kilometres away with chilling warnings: “Stop talking or you’ll disappear for good.”^[26] The Law Society of Kenya, under the leadership of President Faith Odhiambo, has called for a judicial inquiry, but little progress has been made. Today’s incident involving Cleophas Malala further reveals how even political insiders who deviate from the ruling script are not spared.^[27] His attempt to support a school play that mirrors the anguish of the youth was met with teargas and police barricades. This sends a chilling message that artistic expression and youthful dissent will be policed into silence.

This wave of coordinated repression across the East African region cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence. It reveals a pattern: governments increasingly adopting the language of democracy while deploying the tools of dictatorship. Elections are held, yes, but they are neither free nor fair. Media outlets operate, but under heavy censorship and threats. Courts issue judgments, but many go unenforced or are reversed via executive pressure. In all three countries, the security apparatus operates with near-impunity. The police, once public servants, now serve as agents of fear.

 

The role of regional and international actors in this crisis has been minimal at best, complicit at worst. The East African Community has been conspicuously silent, preferring trade diplomacy over human rights enforcement. The African Union’s Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance might as well be written in invisible ink, given its lack of enforcement.^[28] Western partners, while occasionally issuing statements of concern, continue to fund security programs in these countries, thereby indirectly enabling state brutality. The US, UK, and EU continue to partner with Uganda and Kenya in counterterrorism efforts, pouring millions into their security budgets, even as those same budgets are used to oppress domestic populations.

Civil society, often the last line of defence, is being systematically undermined. NGOs in Tanzania have been deregistered en masse for allegedly promoting "foreign values".^[29] In Uganda, the Financial Intelligence Authority now uses money laundering laws to freeze accounts of rights organisations.^[30] In Kenya, protest organisers have faced trumped-up charges ranging from unlawful assembly to cybercrime.^[31] The state seeks not just to arrest bodies, but to paralyze institutions of resistance.

There is also a dangerous psychological war underway—a campaign to paint dissent as treason, protestors as paid agents, and critics as enemies of development. State-sponsored bloggers and influencers flood social media with hate, disinformation, and defamation^[32]. Activists like Boniface Mwangi in Kenya, Stella Nyanzi in Uganda, and Fatma Karume in Tanzania are routinely attacked online and offline. The aim is to isolate them, exhaust them, and erase them from public memory.

 

Yet, in the face of these threats, voices of resistance persist. In Tanzania, lawyers like Fatma Karume continue to challenge state overreach despite being disbarred.^[33] In Uganda, artists like Bobi Wine have turned their music into a megaphone for freedom.^[34] In Kenya, youth-led movements such as #OccupyParliament and #RejectFinanceBill2024 are redefining civic engagement.^[35] These individuals, often operating at great personal risk, remind the region—and the world—that the fight for justice is not over.^[36]

Still, we must ask: how many more must be disappeared, tortured, or exiled before the region wakes up? How many more school plays must be banned, rallies disrupted, or court orders ignored before East Africa admits it is at war with its own people? The dream of Pan-African unity and liberation is turning into a nightmare of shared repression. How will history judge us?

When President William Ruto's government unleashes tear gas on schoolgirls at Butere Girls High School for daring to stage a play that critiques his regime^[37], or when President Samia Suluhu's government sends police to arrest Tundu Lissu without a warrant for merely addressing a rally,^[38] or when General Yoweri Museveni orchestrates the abduction of Dr. Kizza Besigye from Kenyan soil and drags him back to Ugandan custody like a fugitive of war,^[39] one cannot help but draw an eerie connection to the world’s most ego-fractured and insecure dictators.

This is the same psychological DNA that compelled Adolf Hitler to execute his closest allies in the 1934 “Night of the Long Knives” because he feared dissent within the Nazi party.^[40] It is the same fragility that saw Joseph Stalin order the execution of poet Osip Mandelstam for penning a satirical poem in 1933 mocking his moustache and cruelty.^[41] Maybe like Stalin, one of these leaders will order a purge on men whose only crime will be a raised eyebrow. 

In East Africa today, our rulers aren’t content with dismissing criticism—they are hellbent on annihilating the very possibility of it. These are leaders whose hearts flutter with paranoia at the sight of microphones, whose hands tremble when artists dare to speak the truth, and who believe public opinion must be manufactured, not earned.

The insecurity runs so deep it pierces the very soul of their governance. Museveni, who has now ruled Uganda for nearly 40 years, once banned a satirical play in 2017 titled The State of the Nation, calling it “insulting.”^[42] William Ruto’s government now equates a high school drama festival piece, Echoes of War, with subversion and national threat, just as Idi Amin once banned newspapers for referring to him by his first name.^[43] Samia Suluhu, who came into power with promises of tolerance, now presides over a Tanzania where dozens of CHADEMA party members have been “disappeared,” and artists like rapper Roma Mkatoliki have been kidnapped and tortured for politically charged lyrics.^[44] This is the psychological profile of tyrants past: paranoid, insecure, and unfit to lead societies that breathe freedom. Saddam Hussein had his son-in-law killed for questioning military decisions and blamed it on his clan.^[45] Kim Jong-un allegedly executed his Defence Minister in 2015 for “disrespect” after he dozed off in a meeting.^[46] In East Africa, criticism need not even be spoken; to dissent in your heart, or in your script, or in your dreams is now enough to summon the wrath of power.

Like Kim Jong-il, who once executed a general for merely drinking during mourning^[47], our trio seems ready to jail someone simply for thinking the government is a joke. Their egos are so outsized, they mistake criticism for coups and satire for sedition. These are men and women who probably lose sleep not over poverty or hunger, but over memes. It’s almost poetic in its absurdity—leaders who have everything, terrified of teenagers with hashtags. History warns us of leaders who can’t stand mirrors: Nero set Rome ablaze to silence dissent, Hitler crushed cabaret artists and poets, and now, here in East Africa, a rally, a slogan, or a school play is enough to summon the full wrath of the state. How thin must your skin be to declare war on drama students? The difference between our present and the past is narrowing fast—and while they may not yet have built gulags, they're certainly laying the psychological foundations for them. These aren’t leaders; they are shadows wearing crowns, terrified of light.

It is no accident that William Ruto panicked at a high school play, or that Samia Suluhu dispatched police to arrest Tundu Lissu for speaking in metaphors, or that Museveni considers any public performance that doesn’t praise him to be an existential threat. These East African leaders follow a long and pitiful tradition of despots who feared art more than armies.

In 1937, Joseph Stalin ordered the execution of the Soviet theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold for promoting "anti-Soviet ideals" through avant-garde stagecraft.^[48] Stalin had already sent the great poet Osip Mandelstam to a gulag for writing a short poem that dared to describe his moustache as "the cockroach mustache."^[49] William Ruto, too, couldn't handle a drama piece titled Echoes of War — a high-school student play that critiqued police brutality — without sending riot police to Butere Girls and force them to walk out of performing the play.

If Stalin was frightened by a poem, and Ruto by a schoolgirl’s play, then the conclusion is inevitable: both were never secure in the legitimacy of their rule, only in the volume of their suppression.

Consider also the ghost of Augusto Pinochet, Chile's military dictator, who in the 1970s banned Victor Jara’s music for its leftist themes and had the singer’s hands crushed before executing him in a stadium filled with dissidents.^[50] Today, the Ruto administration persecutes kids not adults artists and playwrights, kids.

Samia’s presidency arrest of rapper Roma Mkatoliki in 2017 by state operatives is a direct echo of Nigeria’s military dictatorship, which once arrested and beat the legendary Fela Kuti for songs exposing corruption.^[51] But perhaps the most pathetic link lies with Museveni, who banned political theatre in Uganda in 2009, fearing that even village plays were sowing rebellion.^[52] Like Hitler — who in 1933 burned thousands of books and banned Bertolt Brecht’s politically critical plays — Museveni too would prefer a nation of silent audiences clapping on command, never questioning.

What unites these autocrats — past and present — is a shared phobia of the imagination. For what is art if not the most dangerous form of resistance? Hitler feared Thomas Mann and exiled him.^[53] Stalin exiled Boris Pasternak and suppressed Doctor Zhivago.^[54] Franco in Spain imprisoned playwrights and banned all Basque literature.^[55] Today, Ruto teargasses school going children and prevents them from performing a play, Museveni labels dissident poets "foreign agents," and Samia speaks of "maintaining order" while targeting musicians who ask too many questions.

These are not leaders—they are frightened gatekeepers of thin-skinned regimes, unable to endure a stanza, a verse, or a scene that holds a mirror to their power. And like all insecure rulers before them, they will attempt to burn every script that does not worship them. But what they fail to learn from history is this: you can exile the poet, jail the singer, censor the script—but you cannot kill the idea. Tyrants fall. Art endures.

It is time for citizens of East Africa to confront this grim reality. We are not just neighbours bound by treaties and roads; we are becoming a community of violation—a triad of regimes reading from the same dark script. If this script is not torn apart and rewritten by the people, then soon, silence will be our only common language.

Authored by Ayaga Max, a third year student of law at the University of Nairobi.

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^[1] Fumbuka Ng'Wanakilala, 'Tanzanian Police Arrest Main Opposition Leader, Party Says' (Bloomberg, 9 April 2025) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-09/tanzanian-police-arrest-main-opposition-leader-party-says accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[2] Al Jazeera, 'Uganda’s Kizza Besigye "kidnapped" in Kenya, taken to military court' (20 November 2024) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/20/ugandan-opposition-politician-kidnapped-in-kenya-taken-to-military-jail accessed 10 April 2025

^[3] Emmanuel Wanjala, 'Teargas fired as stand-off over Malala play escalates' (The Star, 9 April 2025) https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2025-04-09-teargas-fired-as-stand-off-over-malala-play-escalates accessed 10 April 2025

^[4] Kemunto Ogutu, 'Ruto Labels Protesting Youth as Dangerous & Treasonous Criminals' (The Africana Voice, 30 June 2024) https://www.africanavoice.com/all-news/kenya-news/ruto-labels-protesting-youth-as-dangerous-treasonous-criminals/ accessed 10 April 2025.

^[5] Chimba Jerry, 'Tanzania: Police Under Scrutiny Over Disappearances' (Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 25 March 2024) https://iwpr.net/global-voices/tanzania-police-under-scrutiny-over-disappearances accessed 10 April 2025.​IWPR Academy+9

^[6] David Walugembe, 'NUP political prisoners’ status remains unclear' (Daily Monitor, 9 April 2025) https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/nup-political-prisoners-status-remains-unclear-4947808 accessed 10 April 2025.

^[7] Human Rights Watch, 'Kenya: Security Forces Abducted, Killed Protesters' (6 November 2024) https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/06/kenya-security-forces-abducted-killed-protesters accessed 10 April 2025

^[8] 'Nobody can lecture me on democracy, says Museveni' (Daily Monitor, 26 January 2018) https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/nobody-can-lecture-me-on-democracy-says-museveni-1737816 accessed 10 April 2025; Polygraph, 'Ruto paints Kenya as democracy while crushing Gen Z protests' (Voice of America, 16 July 2024) https://www.voanews.com/a/ruto-paints-kenya-a-democracy-after-crashing-gen-z-protests-/7700331.html accessed 10 April 2025; 'Samia Suluhu defends state of democracy under her rule' (The EastAfrican, 16 September 2021) https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/samia-suluhu-defends-state-of-democracy-3552152 accessed 10 April 2025

^[9] John D'Agostino and W. Scott Stornetta, 'The Reality Coefficient - How To Know Oneself in an Age of AI' (Horizons, Winter 2025, Issue No. 29) https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/horizons-winter-2025-issue-no-29/the-reality-coefficien accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[10] McKenzie Jean-Philippe, '35 Poignant James Baldwin Quotes on Love and Justice That Are Especially Timely' (Oprah Daily, 12 June 2020) https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/g32842156/james-baldwin-quotes/ accessed 10 April 2025.

^[11] Nic Cheeseman, 'The end of the honeymoon in Tanzania: CCM reverts to type' (Democracy in Africa, 9 December 2024) https://democracyinafrica.org/the-end-of-the-honeymoon-in-tanzania-president-samias-govt-reverts-to-type/ accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[12] ibid

^[13] Reuters, 'Tanzania opposition leader arrested at rally, his party says' (9 April 2025) https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/tanzania-opposition-leader-arrested-rally-his-party-says-2025-04-09/ accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[14] ibid

^[15] Legal and Human Rights Centre, 'Policy Brief to Addressing Unlawful Arrests and Disappearances in Tanzania: Ensuring Accountability and Adherence to Legal Procedures' (20 November 2024) https://humanrights.or.tz/sw/report/download/Lhrc_policy_brief_2024 accessed 10 April 2025.

^[16] Michael Mutyaba and Maria Burnett, 'Fault Lines in Five More Years of Museveni’s Rule' (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9 July 2021) https://www.csis.org/analysis/fault-lines-five-more-years-musevenis-rule accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[17]  Al Jazeera, 'Uganda’s Kizza Besigye "kidnapped" in Kenya, taken to military court' (20 November 2024) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/20/ugandan-opposition-politician-kidnapped-in-kenya-taken-to-military-jail accessed 10 April 2025.

^[18] American Bar Association Center for Human Rights, 'Rwanda: Background Briefing on Proceedings Against Paul Rusesabagina' (30 January 2023) https://www.americanbar.org/groups/human_rights/reports/background_briefing_rwanda_paul_rusesabagina/ accessed 10 April 2025

^[19] Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, 'Report of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights on Violations of Human Rights in the Matter of Miguna Miguna' (KNCHR, 2018) https://www.knchr.org/Portals/0/CivilAndPoliticalReports/KNCHR%20Report%20on%20Miguna%20Miguna%20Final_2.pdf accessed 10 April 2025

^[20] Human Rights Watch, 'One Year Later, No Justice for Victims of Uganda’s Lethal Clampdown' (18 November 2021) https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/18/one-year-later-no-justice-victims-ugandas-lethal-clampdown accessed 10 April 2025.

^[21] African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, 'Torture Prevention and Accountability in Uganda: Joint Alternative Report Submitted in Application to Article 19 of the UN Committee Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment at the 73rd Session of the UN Committee Against Torture for the Examination of Uganda' (April 2024) https://irct.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ACTV_CAT_Report_Final.pdf accessed 10 April 2025.

^[22] Kenya Human Rights Commission, '2024: A Year of Blatant State Repression Through Regime Policing' (2 January 2025) https://khrc.or.ke/press-release/2024-a-year-of-blatant-state-repression-through-regime-policing/ accessed 10 April 2025.

^[23] Kenya Human Rights Commission, '2024: A Year of Blatant State Repression Through Regime Policing' (2 January 2025) https://khrc.or.ke/press-release/2024-a-year-of-blatant-state-repression-through-regime-policing/ accessed 10 April 2025.

^[24] Human Rights Watch, 'Kenya: Witnesses Describe Police Killing Protesters' (28 June 2024) https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/06/28/kenya-witnesses-describe-police-killing-protesters accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[25] Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, 'Update on the Status of Human Rights in Kenya during the Anti-Finance Bill Protests, Monday 1st July, 2024' (1 July 2024) https://www.knchr.org/Articles/ArtMID/2432/ArticleID/1200/Update-on-the-Status-of-Human-Rights-in-Kenya-during-the-Anti-Finance-Bill-Protests-Monday-1st-July-2024?gsid=97ad6dc1-eeeb-4dbf-bdbe-2584141ff73e accessed 10 April 2025

^[26] NTV Kenya, 'Abductions: Four of six missing youth found alive' (6 January 2025) https://ntvkenya.co.ke/news/abductions-four-of-six-missing-youth-found-alive/ accessed 10 April 2025.

^[27]  Emmanuel Wanjala, 'Teargas fired as stand-off over Malala play escalates' (The Star, 9 April 2025) https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2025-04-09-teargas-fired-as-stand-off-over-malala-play-escalates accessed 10 April 2025

 

^[28] Abadir M Ibrahim, 'Evaluating a Decade of the African Union's Protection of Human Rights and Democracy: A Post-Tahrir Assessment' (2012) 12 African Human Rights Law Journal 30-68.​

^[29] CIVICUS, 'Against the Wave: Civil Society Responses to Anti-Rights Groups' (November 2019) https://www.civicus.org/documents/reports-and-publications/action-against-the-anti-rights-wave/AgainstTheWave_Full_en.pdf accessed 10 April 2025

^[30] ECNL, 'Watchdogs Targeted Under AML/CFT Suspicions' (2020) https://learningcenter.ecnl.org/news/watchdogs-targeted-under-amlcft-suspicions#:~:text=In%20December%202020%2C%20the%20Ugandan%20government's%20Financial,of%20at%20least%20four%20human%20rights%20groups. accessed 10 April 2025.

^[31] Kenya Human Rights Commission, '2024: A Year of Blatant State Repression Through Regime Policing' (2 January 2025) https://khrc.or.ke/press-release/2024-a-year-of-blatant-state-repression-through-regime-policing/ accessed 10 April 2025.

^[32] Samantha Bradshaw, Ualan Campbell-Smith, Amelie Henle, Antonella Perini, Sivanne Shalev, Hannah Bailey, and Philip N. Howard, 'Industrialized Disinformation: 2020 Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation' (2021) https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2021/03/Case-Studies_FINAL.pdf accessed 10 April 2025.

^[33] Carmel Rickard, 'Tanzanian Lawyers in Uproar After Judge Suspends Their Immediate Past President from Practice' (AfricanLII, 27 September 2019) https://africanlii.org/articles/2019-09-27/carmel-rickard/tanzanian-lawyers-in-uproar-after-judge-suspends-their-immediate-past-president-from-practice accessed 10 April 2025.

^[34] Mimeta, 'Uganda: Silencing Creativity in the Shadow of Authoritarianism' (8 April 2025) http://www.mimeta.org/mimeta-news-on-censorship-in-art/2025/4/8/uganda-silencing-creativity-in-the-shadow-of-authoritarianism accessed 10 April 2025.

^[35] Ingutia Brian Collins, 'The Impact of Social Media in Shaping Kenya’s Politics: Gen Z Uprising and the Rejection of the Finance Bill 2024' (2025) 1 African Multidisciplinary Journal of Research (Special Issue 1) 47-68.

^[36] ibid

^[37]  Emmanuel Wanjala, 'Teargas fired as stand-off over Malala play escalates' (The Star, 9 April 2025) https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2025-04-09-teargas-fired-as-stand-off-over-malala-play-escalates accessed 10 April 2025

^[38]  Fumbuka Ng'Wanakilala, 'Tanzanian Police Arrest Main Opposition Leader, Party Says' (Bloomberg, 9 April 2025) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-09/tanzanian-police-arrest-main-opposition-leader-party-says accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[39]  Al Jazeera, 'Uganda’s Kizza Besigye "kidnapped" in Kenya, taken to military court' (20 November 2024) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/20/ugandan-opposition-politician-kidnapped-in-kenya-taken-to-military-jail accessed 10 April 2025

 

^[40] Edward G. Gunning Jr., 'The Night of the Long Knives: Reconsidered' (2022) City College of New York https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/995 accessed 10 April 2025.

^[41] Gabriel Fine, 'Osip Mandelstam’s ‘Black Earth’ Reaps Sweetness from the Darkest Soviet Years' (9 July 2021) Calvert Reads https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/12939/osip-mandelstam-black-earth-poetry-collection-review-soviet-stalin-calvert-reads accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[42] BBC News, 'Uganda's Media Council bans State of the Nation play' (18 October 2012) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-20155281 accessed 10 April 2025.

^[43] Bernard Tabaire, 'The Press and Political Repression in Uganda: Back to the Future?' (2007) 1(2) Journal of Eastern African Studies 193-211.

^[44] Lucy Ilado, 'Tanzania music ban 'a futile exercise'' (5 March 2018) Music In Africa https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/tanzania-music-ban-futile-exercise accessed 10 April 2025.

^[45] Douglas Jehl, 'Iraqi Offers Regrets in Killing of Defecting Sons-in-Law' (The New York Times, 10 May 1996) https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/10/world/iraqi-offers-regrets-in-killing-of-defecting-sons-in-law.html accessed 10 April 2025.

^[46] France 24, 'North Korea 'executes defence chief' who fell asleep at meeting' (France 24, 13 May 2015) https://www.france24.com/en/20150513-north-korea-executes-defence-chief-treason-charges accessed 10 April 2025.​

^[47] Faine Greenwood, 'North Korean military officer executed—by mortar round—for drinking during mourning period for Kim Jong Il' (The World, 31 July 2016) https://theworld.org/stories/2016/07/31/north-korean-military-officer-executed-mortar-round-drinking-during-mourning-period-kim-jong accessed 10 April 2025.

^[48] Fiveable, 'Vsevolod Meyerhold and the rise of avant-garde theatre' (Fiveable, no date) https://library.fiveable.me/history-theatre-ii-cities-at-play-from-renaissance-rise-realism/unit-12/vsevolod-meyerhold-rise-avant-garde-theatre/study-guide/d1utKoTI2EmMabwa accessed 10 April 2025.

^[49] ibid

^[50] Adam Augustyn, 'Victor Jara, Biography and Death' (Britannica,) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Victor-Jara accessed 10 April 2025.

^[51] Richard Harrington, 'Fela Kuti & The Chords Of Africa' (The Washington Post, 6 November 1986) https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/11/07/fela-kuti-38/69e5f304-aa23-44ce-a3c2-c9d3e3c119ee/ accessed 10 April 2025

^[52] A. K. Kaiza, 'Museveni: Trapped in His Own Shrinking Web of Patronage?' (The Elephant, 24 June 2017) https://www.theelephant.info/analysis/2017/06/24/museveni-trapped-in-his-own-shrinking-web-of-patronage/ accessed 10 April 2025

^[53] David Post, 'From My 'Commonplace Book,' No. 9: Thomas Mann, Richard Wagner, and Adolf Hitler' (Reason, 20 January 2025) https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/20/commonplace9-thomas-mann-richard-wagner-and-adolf-hitler/ accessed 10 April 2025.

^[54] Karen Van Drie, 'International Banned Book: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak' (Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 18 December 2017) https://glli-us.org/2017/12/18/international-banned-book-doctor-zhivago-by-boris-pasternak/ accessed 10 April 2025

^[55] Christian Claesson, 'Vernacular Resistance: Catalan, Basque, and Galician Opposition to Francoist Monolingualism' in Christopher Kullberg and David Watson (eds), Vernaculars in an Age of World Literatures (Bloomsbury Academic 2022) 51-80