III. Police Violence, Intimidation, and Extortion

Violence, prejudice, and extortion by police contribute to severe mistrust between key populations and state institutions. For many Tanzanians, police are the face of the Tanzanian state that they encounter most regularly. For key populations, these interactions are anything but positive. Human Rights Watch and WASO documented cases of violent assault by the police against all three groups that are the focus of this report: LGBTI people, people who use drugs, and sex workers. Police also targeted children who were victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Of those who had not experienced assault, nearly everyone had experienced extortion for money, sexual favors, or both.

Among all three key populations, our research suggests that those who are the most vulnerable to police abuse are from lower socioeconomic classes. Men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, and sex workers from secure economic backgrounds often manage to avoid the police. A heroin user from a middle-class family told Human Rights Watch he was never caught by police because he used drugs in the privacy of his own home.[97] Similarly, a group of sex workers in Arusha said that because they were working in an enclosed bar frequented by a middle-class clientele, they were relatively protected from police harassment, whereas their colleagues who worked the streets were more frequently arrested and beaten.[98] While police abuse of male sex workers is common, Human Rights Watch and WASO heard of no cases in which their clients, generally well-off men, were arrested or ill-treated by police. Wealthier individuals’ ability to pay bribes also helped them, in some cases, to escape detention and violence.

Marginalized groups are not the only ones who suffer violence and abuse at the hands of the Tanzanian police. The Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), an NGO, reports that the Tanzanian police extra-judicially executed at least 11 people in 2012.[99] LHRC cited a culture of impunity and the lack of an external, independent oversight body as explanations for high levels of police violence against civilians.[100]

Police corruption is also a widespread problem in Tanzania.[101] According to a representative of a foreign aid agency that works with the Tanzanian police, “Police are worse on corruption than other institutions. They may also be the worst institution on human rights.”[102] Tanzanian police regularly shake down civilians for bribes. This may include for instance, drivers, whether they do or do not break the law; victims of crime, who are seeking police assistance and are told it only comes at a price; refugees or asylum seekers who are caught without proper documentation; or people involved in unlawful sexual conduct or drug consumption.[103] Police know that the latter group is an easy target, as members of marginalized groups are less likely to file complaints.

Some efforts have been undertaken to combat police corruption. Police told Human Rights Watch that 47 officers were dismissed due to corruption in the first half of 2012.[104] However, vulnerable groups are particularly unlikely to report corrupt or violent police, as the stories below demonstrate.

Torture and Ill-Treatment

Human Rights Watch and WASO interviewed dozens of members of key populations that had been tortured, raped, ill-treated, or coerced into paying bribes by police in the last several years. In none of these cases were police held accountable for the abuses.

In Temeke, a Dar es Salaam district with high levels of drug use, victims frequently referred to a police officer nicknamed “Tyson,” based at Chang’ombe Police Station, who by all accounts seemed to draw sadistic pleasure from assaulting and humiliating people who use drugs. In one such case, Suleiman R. was arrested on December 31, 2011, and taken to Chang’ombe Police Station. There had been three robberies the previous week, and since Suleiman was known to inject drugs, police suspected him. He said,

They took me to a special room to torture me and get me to confess to the cases…. First they hit me with iron bars on the right arm. Then they took a clothes iron and ironed me on the arm. They ironed me two times. One of them was Tyson, who is also known as Adnan.[105]

Human Rights Watch saw burn marks on Suleiman’s arm consistent with those that might be left by an iron. The following day, Suleiman’s parents paid a bribe of Tsh 200,000 (about $123) in order to have him released.

Zeitoun Y. was arrested in January 2009 just after smoking heroin in his maskani.[106] He tried to run away; when police caught him, he said, “I was tied around the neck with a rope. I was dragged about 200 meters. Tyson put the rope on me and dragged me personally.” Zeitoun was taken to Chang’ombe Police Station, where he said police beat him and tried to make him confess to a robbery.[107]

Mwajuma P. reported that in 2011, Tyson beat and humiliated a group of women who use drugs:

He came to a maskani with two other police, rounded us up, and forced us to pray…. He told us to put our hands on our heads. Then he made us walk to the police and sing songs: “Us, we are drug users. Us, we steal phones.” Tyson started treating us like cows, beating us with a five-foot long heavy plastic pipe. He came with it. He beat me on the back, on the legs.[108]

Tyson forced the women to walk more than four kilometers in the hot, midday sun, according to Mwajuma. At Chang’ombe station, police took their statements. Mwajuma was released without charge after two days, when her sister-in-law paid Tsh 20,000 (about $12).

Ally H., who uses heroin, said that police from Chang’ombe beat him and his wife in August 2012:

The police came from Chang’ombe at about 8 p.m. They kicked in the door by force. They came in and started to beat me and my wife.... They were suspecting us of being drug sellers. They didn’t have any warrant. They were about seven police.

I was beaten with a rungu [club] on the knees and forearms and back. I still have pain on my knees. They hit me on the back with a stick that was like a thick branch.[109] 

At the station, Ally said, an investigating officer ordered him to lie down on the floor, and different police beat him. Even after Ally paid a bribe of Tsh 40,000, he said, police “continued beating us with sticks while chasing us out of the police station. It was afternoon, and all the other police officers saw.”[110] Approximately a month after his release, a Human Rights Watch researcher observed bruises on Ally’s back that were consistent with being beaten by sticks.

Several victims also cited police from Dar es Salaam’s Oysterbay Police Station as being responsible for assault, sexual exploitation, and extortion. Fazila Y. said police from Oysterbay Police Station beat her in the middle of the street when she was caught in the maskani in October 2011 using drugs with friends:

Passers-by and shopkeepers looked on as the police kicked me, verbally assaulted me, and tore my clothes. After they were satisfied that I was hurt to their liking, they dragged me into the back of the police car.[111]

Asked whether she considered filing a complaint against the officers who beat her, Fazila said, “I do not see the point of complaining about treatment that we receive from police. What will change? Who will listen?”[112]

A police sergeant arrested and beat Mickdad J., in Tandika, Dar es Salaam, in June 2012 because he was carrying unused syringes from Médecins du Monde’s (MdM) harm reduction program:

I was coming from MdM with syringes, yellow boxes [for disposal of sharps], things that I use to inject. I was outside my home arranging these things. The sergeant saw me, stopped and arrested me. I wanted to call MdM, but [the sergeant] took me to Mamboleyo Police Post. There, he beat me with his hands, a stick, and also with his police boots.[113] 

Mickdad’s mother came to the police post and paid Tsh 30,000 (about $18) to have him released, but the experience had a lasting impact due to his fragile health, Mickdad said, “Even now I have pain in my spinal cord and my coordination is not good. I am HIV positive, so when people beat me it’s a problem.”[114]

One particularly horrific case of alleged police abuse involved John Elias (his real name), a heroin user in the Kigamboni area of Dar es Salaam. On February 18, 2010, he was arrested in a drug bust in Kurasini neighborhood. According to Elias, one of the police officers involved in the arrest had a personal problem with him: the officer believed Elias was having an affair with his girlfriend. The officer seemingly used the drug bust, and Elias’s vulnerable status, as an opportunity to get revenge.

Elias told Human Rights Watch that police burst into the house at 4 p.m. and said they were conducting an operation to look for drugs:

They looked but found nothing. They arrested three of us. I was arrested by a policeman called James who suspected me of walking with his girlfriend. He knew me from before. He suspected me of using drugs, but also walking with his woman. The other two were arrested because they were drug users. [115]

All three men were taken to Kilwa Road police station. Police began taking statements from Elias’s friends, but Elias said the Officer Commanding District (OCD)—the superior of James and other officers present—ordered that he be taken to a different police post.

I was put inside a car with chains on my hands and feet. They didn’t say why. James said, “We’re sending you to Chang’ombe to break your leg.” But they were lying—they took me to Minazini post.

They put chains on my arms and legs and pushed me down. I saw a syringe with liquid inside. James was holding it. He said, “Today is your last day to see, Mr. John.” First he injected my right eye, and then the left one. I was lying on the ground. About five police were there. They were grabbing me, holding me, stepping on me with boots…. I felt like my eyes were burning. It was so hot.[116]

At around 7 p.m., Elias said, the police returned him to Kilwa Rd Police Station and put him in lockup with his friends. Police took him directly to court in the morning. Although he told court officials what the police had done to him, he was taken directly to prison and was not taken to the hospital until a week later.[117] There, he discovered that the police had injected his eyes with acid.

Today, Elias has gaping holes where his eyes should be.

The Nyerere Centre for Human Rights, a local NGO based in Temeke district, has been following the case since 2010.  Edward Nsajigwa of the Nyerere Centre told Human Rights Watch, “He went to open a case at the police station, but they wouldn’t help him.… He went to the general secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs, but the general secretary said his eyes were busted out by mob justice.”[118] The Commission on Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG), Tanzania’s national human rights institution, has visited Elias’s home to investigate the case. In April 2013, a CHRAGG official told Human Rights Watch the file is still under investigation at CHRAGG, without providing further detail.[119]

Police torture and ill-treatment of people who use drugs is not limited to Dar es Salaam. In Mbeya, Musa E., a teenager who has been orphaned since he was eight and who used to use heroin, says he agreed to transport a sack of heroin across the border from Zambia to support his habit. Tanzanian police arrested him at the border town of Tunduma and tortured him in order to find out for whom he was working. Musa said the police squeezed his fingernails and toenails with pliers; elbowed him in the jaw, causing his mouth to ooze pus for a month from the resultant infection; and stepped on his ankles in boots, until he provided his employer’s name.[120]

In Zanzibar, former drug users told Human Rights Watch that most of their complaints were with police jamii (see Section IV below). Local organizations have organized trainings and dialogues to sensitize the regular police about the importance of treatment rather than punishment. These have been largely successful. But some cases of police ill-treatment linger. Police caught Omary Q. in possession of heroin in his neighborhood in late 2011. Omary said,

They grabbed my neck and punched me in the lungs and kicked me so that I fell down. Then they handcuffed me and took me to the station. They asked me, “How much can you pay [to be released]?” I said, “I don’t have any money, but if we go to a place I can get some.” I left with two of them. We went to my brother’s. My brother bribed them with Tsh 50,000 ($35) and they freed me.

You can’t go to the police and make a complaint if you’re abused by them. We can’t trust them. They’ll accuse us of being against the law.[121]

One former heroin user told Human Rights Watch of the humiliation he suffered in police custody in Zanzibar:

One time I was in custody and had withdrawal symptoms – diarrhea, vomiting. The police didn’t care; they left me in the room [cell]. I was crying, “Take me to the toilet!” They would let me go to the toilet once a night only. So I would have to just shit in the cell.[122]

Several women interviewed in a drug treatment center in Zanzibar said they had also been beaten by police. Sharifa Z. was beaten in police custody at Ngambo police post in 2011, apparently as punishment for vomiting as part of her withdrawal symptoms: “I was puking because of withdrawal, so they were upset and they hit me a bit.”[123] Police beat Suhayla F., a pregnant 23-year-old woman, in mid-2012 for using heroin. Suhayla recalled, “One of the police said to the other ‘She’s pregnant, don’t hit her,’ but the other hit me on the back.”[124]

Men who have sex with men are also subjected to violence by the police, especially in Dar es Salaam, where they tend to be slightly more open and thus identifiable. Saidi A., whose story is recounted in Section II, above, was threatened by police at gunpoint and forced to call his gay friends. Police beat them with belts, stripped them naked, and mocked them as they were repeatedly raped in police custody.

Collins A., a gay man in Tandika, was arrested and beaten for attempting to organize a seminar on health issues for men who have sex with men, which he hoped would be the first step toward establishing a local MSM association in his neighborhood:

I asked the warden of Tandika for permission to have a seminar. We were open, asking to have a seminar for MSM. The warden called the police. The police came and arrested me at the warden’s office…. They slapped my face and took me to the police cell. They detained me for two days at Changombe police station. They told me, “We’re arresting you because you’re same-sex.” They didn’t tell me my rights. They insulted me while questioning me, said, “We don’t need you people, we don’t need you to survive, that’s why we’re fighting against you.” They tore my clothes. They beat my legs with a baton. I had trouble walking afterwards.[125]

A friend brought Tsh 12,000 (about $7) to bribe the police to release Collins. When he sought medical treatment after the beating, Collins confronted another obstacle:

I went to the hospital afterwards because I was in pain from the beating. But the hospital said I had to get a PF3. I went to the station to ask, and the police refused to give it to me. So I had to bribe the doctor in order to get treated…. I gave up on the idea of forming an association.[126]

In Arusha, Lester F., an 18-year-old gay man, recounted his arrest in October 2012. He had made the mistake of dating a married man, whose wife discovered the affair:

We were in a bar. His wife came to the bar with her brother, who was a policeman, and caught us. He called other policemen, and about four came, and arrested me.

They beat me all the way from the bar to the car to the police station. They beat me with clubs and with belts. They even told me they might shoot me. Where they beat me, I had hand marks on my face, and marks from the belt on my arms. I cried a lot.[127]

Police took Lester to the station, where, in the lobby, other police asked why he had been arrested. When they were informed that Lester was gay, he recalled, “Then all the police started beating me. Every police who was there was beating me. Some insulted me. Some pushed me.”[128] Lester F. was freed after he telephoned a soldier, whom he described to Human Rights Watch and WASO as a boyfriend, who came to the station to intervene.

Mariam H., a sex worker, said police in Dar es Salaam’s Kinondoni district detained and beat her in early 2012 after catching her on the street. She paid a Tsh 30,000 ($about 18) bribe to be released. Several days later, she decided to report the beating at the local police station:

I tried to go and report them. It was two days after, when I felt strong enough to leave the house. The police lied and said that I had been beaten by the people [civilians]. They mentioned that it might be because I am a thief as well as a sex worker. They had physically hurt me, and nowhere is it legal for policemen to physically abuse “criminals.”[129]

Sexual Assault and Sexual Extortion by Police

One specific form of violence that police inflicted on key populations is sexual violence, which can be a form of torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Walid A., a 19-year-old MSM in Zanzibar who occasionally does sex work, was raped by police and police jamii on his way home from a club in 2011. He said,

They have water pipes and electrical wires. They beat me with those. They forced me to have sex with them. Five or six of them came [to arrest me], and two of them raped me…. They had canes and pipes, and they hit me on the bottoms of the feet. I couldn’t walk afterwards. I didn’t go to the hospital afterwards because they harass you there.[130]

Human Rights Watch observed scars on Walid’s legs that were consistent with having been beaten with electrical cable.

Alex N., a transgender man, was sexually assaulted by the police at Buguruni Police Station in Dar es Salaam in 2009. He was 18 at the time. The manager at the bar where he worked, who accused him of being a lesbian and having a “bad attitude,” turned him in to the police. When Alex arrived at the police station, he said, police told him to take off his clothes and touched his breasts and vagina. They beat him on his arms and back with a belt and then forced him to wear women’s clothing and clean the police station. He was released after six days, and said, “I did not make a complaint. I was afraid.”[131]

Jessie L., a transgender woman and sex worker in Dar es Salaam who is biologically male but passes as a woman, said she had been arrested for sex work more than 10 times. On at least one occasion, police sexually assaulted her:

I normally tell them the truth. So the police get shocked. “You are a gay? No, you are a woman.” So they don’t beat me. They take me to the special room and check me. They have me stay in a special room with neither men nor women. They call everyone to come and look at me—male and female police officers. They call each other, “Come, come! Look at this gay!” And they ask me more questions. “How did you start to have anal sex? How do you feel when you are penetrated?” They normally force me to take off my clothes and I don’t have an option, so I agree with them.

The police never forced me to have sex with them to be released. But they did touch me, joking about me and squeezing my fake breasts. They said “Show us an example of when you handle your partner, when you have sex, how does it look.” I refused. But they were touching me, “Are you really a woman?” They touched me everywhere. They asked “Do you have a vagina?” and touched my genitals.[132]

Of the 66 people we interviewed who were or had previously been engaged in sex work – men, women, and children – at least 23 said the police had forced them into sex. Five such victims were children. Women who use drugs also reported being forced into sex with police in exchange for release from custody. Some police refuse to use condoms, making the police possible conduits for transmission of HIV and other STIs. All acts of forced non-consensual sex constitute rape.

Halima Y. was gang-raped by eight police officers in March 2013. She explained,

I have had sex with policemen so many times I cannot even remember how many. He catches me, he wants money, but I do not have money so he will force me to have sex with him…. On Easter [2013], three policemen arrested me and wanted money. I did not have any money. I bribed them with sex. Then, three others policemen came. I also bribed them with sex. Again, two others policemen came, and I gave them sex. I was sick… I got a UTI [urinary tract infection] and I even got gonorrhea. I am now on medication.[133]

Amanda Z., a female sex worker in Dar es Salaam, said police had forced her to have sex on two occasions without condoms, most recently in early 2013:

 [In both cases], they would not use a condom and I did not tell them [to do so] because I just wanted to get released and get home to my kids. If I have to have unsafe sex in exchange for my release then I do it and go.[134]

Ramazani H., a 22-year-old male sex worker in Dar es Salaam, has been arrested in the streets at least four times. The first two times, police beat him with sticks and asked him for bribes. The third time, he said,

Two police arrested me in Kariakoo. They beat me again and took me to the police station. I spent one night there. They forced me to have sex [with them], but I refused, so they said “If you refuse, just suck our dicks.” So I sucked their dicks outside of the police station.

Ramazani still had to pay Tsh 30,000 (about $18) in order to be released.[135]

Wilson N., a former sex worker in Dar es Salaam, said that on two occasions, in 2009 and 2011, police arrested him while he was doing sex work and forced him to have sex with them. The first time, two police officers took him to Keko Police Post and insisted on sex without condoms, then made him spend the night in jail. On the second occasion, Wilson recalled:

I passed near Tandika Police Post and the police officer called to me. I was wearing women’s clothes. He said “You are loitering and looking for clients. If you want me to leave you free, you have to have sex with me.” I decided to have sex with him. He used a condom and oil-based lubricant. He wanted to do it fast because he was afraid of other police officers coming.... We did it in the toilet of the police post.[136]

Police Rape and Assault of Children

Some of the most troubling cases of police abuses against members of key populations involve children, particularly children engaged in sex work. Police rape, sexually assault, and beat children engaged in sex work with impunity. Sexual abuse of children is a serious crime in Tanzania, for which police should be investigated and prosecuted. Children engaged in sex work should never themselves be arrested and prosecuted for engaging in sex work, but should be provided with the appropriate assistance.

As recounted in Section I, multiple police officers in Tunduma raped Rosemary I. on two different occasions when she was 12. Three police officers raped another girl involved in sex work, Alamisi V., after arresting her at Magorofani truck stop in Mbeya during Easter 2011. She was 14 years old.[137]

In July 2012, two police in Mbeya detained Jenifer A., a 16-year-old girl engaged in sex work. They took her to CCM Police Station, raped her on the ground outside the station, and then beat and kicked her while she lay on the ground. She said that while beating her, “They told me I should not be going to the bars to have sex.”[138]

Sex with police does not necessarily protect against arrest. Khadija J., a 16-year-old in Mbeya, has been raped by police at least eight times in the year-and-a-half that she has been doing sex work. On two occasions, police officers took her home and forced her to spend the night with them. But, she said, “Both times they had sex with me but then sent me to Central Police Station in the morning. Then I just had to wait until I could call my friends and they paid money to release me. They had to give Tsh 30,000 or 40,000.”[139]

On another occasion, Khadija tried to refuse a policeman who insisted on having sex with her, but to no avail: “After he punched me in the eye and slapped me, I had to agree.”[140]

Because of their illegal status, both children and adults are forced into sex with police officers even when they are not caught while working, especially in smaller towns where sex workers become easily known. Adimu S., a 16-year-old in Mbeya, explained, “Sometimes, the first time they catch you, they have sex with you or you give them money. Then they mark you, and use you again for sex, even if they don’t catch you doing sex work. They threaten to take you to the station.”[141] This possible exposure explains why children engaged in commercial sexual exploitation, as well as adult sex workers, might be reluctant to file complaints with the police, even when the perpetrators are civilians (discussed further in Section VI): they will be “marked,” and will risk becoming victims of exploitation in the future.

In addition to sexual abuse, police also inflict physical abuse in children. Rosemary I. said that when she was 13 years old, a police officer burned her on the arm with a lighter, while asking her, “Why are you selling yourself?”[142]

Ruby C., a 17-year-old girl engaged in sex work in Mwanza, told Human Rights Watch and WASO in October 2012 that the previous week police beat her outside Mwanza’s Villa Hotel:

There were three police officers that were accusing me of selling myself. The police forced me to kneel down and they started to beat me. They kicked me with their boots. They beat me on the back with the club that they normally carry. I was in pain—I swelled up. I didn’t go to the hospital after I got out because I didn’t have money. I didn’t go to report it because I was afraid that the police would beat me again.[143]

Another street child engaged in sex work, Bishara A., age 16, said three police officers stopped her in the street and beat her in Mwanza in 2011:

The police asked, “What are you doing?” because it was late. I told them, “I sleep here.” They started accusing me of being a sex worker, and beat me. They took me to Kati Police Station. At the police station they beat me with a rubber tube from a car tire. They told me to lie down and they beat me on the buttocks.

The police insisted on a bribe of Tsh 30,000 (about $18) to free Bishara, which she could not pay. After two days, the officer in charge, a woman, ordered her release.[144]

Extortion of Money

When police do not demand sex from at-risk populations, they often demand money. Harun Z., a man in Temeke who uses heroin, spoke of extortion by the police as a regular aspect of daily life:

It’s happened to me a lot: in small police posts, Kilimahewa, Vianiza, Tandika. They ask for an amount depending on how well-off your appearance is. If you look well-off they ask for Tsh 50,000. If not, they ask for Tsh 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000.[145]

Ilham K., a sex worker in Dar es Salaam, went to a guest house in 2011 with a client, who refused to use a condom. When she insisted, he began violently pushing her around. Ilham called for help, and staff from the guest house came to the room. The client then claimed she had robbed him, and took her to Oysterbay Police Station. The police officers were sympathetic to her story, but still held her in custody and insisted on a bribe: according to Ilham, when her sister came to the station in the morning, “The police told her, ‘We know your sister hasn’t done anything, but this man insists, so we’ll wait for this man to go and then you and your sister can go, but you have to pay Tsh 20,000.’ (about $12).”[146]

Evelyn D. was arrested in late 2011 while preparing to inject heroin. She said, “In the police station I was subjected to a lot of harsh words from the police, especially because I was a woman. They said things like, ‘You are a stupid woman. You are a whore!’” Evelyn was released the same night after her boyfriend brought Tsh 20,000 for the police.[147]

Edwin J., an MSM, had to pay a bribe of Tsh 30,000 (about $18) to officers from Kongwe Police Post in Dar es Salaam in January 2012, after a guest house attendant called the police to report that there were “homosexuals” in a room.[148]

Extortion of money, like sexual extortion, can take place even when members of key populations are not involved in any illegal activity. Henry O., a Mwanza man who uses drugs, explained: “They know me very well, these policemen, and I have become someone for them to get money from. I usually give them around Tsh 10,000-20,000 depending on the day. Sometimes they beat me up, sometimes they don’t.”[149]

Extortion is not only a crime in itself. It leads to a breakdown of trust between members of key populations and the security forces. For Ilham K., a sex worker in Dar es Salaam:

The police’s problem is money. They just want money and know that sex workers have got money. So there’s no friendship there. If there were, we would ask them for help and go to the police when we’re wronged. But we fear them and run away from them.[150]

Arbitrary Arrests

Sex workers, LGBTI people, and people who use drugs all reported that the Tanzanian police had arbitrarily arrested them. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has ruled that arrests made on the basis of same-sex activity are, by definition, arbitrary.[151] When police arrest people for sex work or drug use, many cases are also clearly arbitrary, taking place in the absence of any evidence of criminal activity. Some such arrests also involve police extorting money or sex from victims.

Mohammed R. and his friend were arrested in Dar es Salaam and held in police custody for “walking like women”:

One time I was in the market buying things with a friend, and then suddenly people started shouting because my friend was very homosexual-looking. So we ran to the shop of one woman. [But] she called the police, and they arrested us and took us to Buguruni Police Station. We asked the police why we were arrested, but the police were just harsh and ignorant. They locked us up and told us that our crime was walking like women. The police beat me after I tried to argue and defend myself, saying I was not involved in any crime.

In the morning, a policeman suggested Mohammed provide money or sex in exchange for freedom. Mohammed refused to have sex with the officer, but paid Tsh 30,000 and was released.[152]

Victor G., a 24-year-old gay man in Dar es Salaam, said he had been detained twice because of his sexual orientation:

The first time was in 2009. I was with three people, all gay. We went to the student hostel to visit a friend. We had a disagreement with the owner of the hostel, who didn’t want to let us in. He called the police and reported us as gays. They came and put handcuffs on us. [The owner] just told them we were gay, he didn’t accuse us of any other crime. A policewoman at the station felt something for us, because we were young and had college IDs. We got out without paying a bribe.

Another time, Victor said, police picked up Victor and his friends in the street when they were returning home from a bar at 11:30 p.m. and took them to Magomeni Sub-Central Police Station. According to Victor, “They accused us of ‘disorderly conduct’ just because we were gay. We spent the night at the station. My aunt came the next morning and bribed them with Tsh 150,000 to get me out.”[153]

Joseph S. was arrested for kissing his partner in the street while walking home from a bar in 2010. Police forced Joseph and his partner into a police car. While in the car,

They were beating us, kicking. They said they would take pictures of us and we were afraid that they could put us on the front page of the newspapers. But they didn’t take pictures. They were insulting us, calling us “bitches.”[154]

Police compelled Joseph and his partner to pay a Tsh 10,000 bribe to be released.

Hussein M. was turned in to the police by his family at the age of 16, in 2007, when they found out he was gay. His uncle beat him and then took him to Minazini Police Station in Dar es Salaam. Hussein is not sure what his uncle told the police, but after being detained for two days without being questioned, he was released. When he went home, his parents said they would no longer pay for his school fees as punishment for his homosexuality, so Hussein, in turn, went to the police to report his parents for neglect.

The police summoned Hussein’s parents, but it was his uncle who came in to discuss the case. According to Hussein,

This time my uncle told [the police officer], “This guy is having sex with other men.” Then the policeman started to support my uncle.  The police started complaining, “Why don’t you stop doing this?” He gave me five strokes with a stick on the thighs. Then he released me and told my uncle, “Go with him and check on him for two days. If he continues having sex with men, return him back to police station again.”

Hussein went home, but his family chased him away after a week. He said, “Up to today I stay with friends, and my parents refuse to pay for school fees because I’m gay.”[155]

Police in Zanzibar detained Hamisi K. in 2009 and attempted to subject him to an anal examination to “prove” he had sex with men. Hamisi recounted:  

We were having a party. The police got information and came. They said men were getting married… They thought it was a wedding, but it was just a party. They even took us to the Mnazi Mmoja hospital to “test” us for anal sex, to do an anal exam. But the doctor refused to test us.[156]

Hayat E. is an intersex person in Dar es Salaam who identifies as a woman. She has dated both men and women, but on several occasions has been subjected to violence by male partners after they realize that she has both male and female sexual organs. Unfortunately, when she attempted a relationship with a woman, it resulted in her being arbitrarily detained:

In March [2012], I was living with a woman. I moved her into my rented room and we were happy together. The local government representative found out that I was living with someone, a female, and they got very upset. The local representative went to the police station to report me. Shockingly, the police took the matter very seriously. They asked me to pay a bribe of Tsh 350,000 (about $214) in order to let the case go. Also the police wanted me to show them my naked body so they could see how I looked.

This was very disturbing to me, and I decided to vacate the room I was renting. Since then, I have decided not to try and live with anyone else.[157]

Mwajuma P., a woman who injects heroin, was arrested for possession of unused syringes. She was assisted by harm reduction and human rights organizations in Temeke:

[I was arrested by] Sungu Sungu and police mixed together, about six months ago. They caught me with syringes at home. They knocked and I opened. They didn’t have a search warrant. They came in and found five boxes of syringes. The Sungu Sungu beat me with the palms of their hands, just because they found me with those boxes. They took me to the police. I sent information to MdM. MdM sent the Nyerere [Human Rights] Centre to bail me out, and the case ended there.[158]