Nairobi, Kenya – On the afternoon of August 19, brothers Jamil and Aslam Longton had just had lunch at home and were heading back to work at the cybercafe they run in Kitengela town, on the outskirts of Nairobi, when they noticed someone suspicious.

A woman was loitering outside their front gate, talking on her mobile phone, just as she had been doing in the same location when they first left for work that morning.

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The brothers got in their car to leave, but a few yards down the road the woman, together with two men, blocked their way with several vehicles. They approached the car and pulled Aslam from the driver’s seat. The 36-year-old had been a vocal participant in the antigovernment protests that recently shook the country.

Even though they were in plain clothes, Jamil, 42, told Al Jazeera he believed the heavily armed group that approached them were police, pointing to a wave of abductions of political dissidents in Kenya which rights groups say is being carried out by state agents, and a warning he had received.

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Less than two weeks before the incident, Jamil, who is also a human rights activist, said a top security official in the area called him and told him to warn his brother never to attend protests again. If Aslam did, “they might harm him”, the caller said.

As the armed men grabbed Aslam from the car that day, shoving him into their waiting SUV, Jamil dashed out, asking the group for proof of their identity and demanding to know whether it was a legal arrest.

When they refused to answer, Jamil threatened to call the local police station. “Noticing my seriousness, they also grabbed me and forced me into the vehicle, blindfolded us, and drove towards the city and around so we could not comprehend our location,” he said.

The brothers say they were held in a dark room for 32 days where they were beaten and threatened with death if they did not reveal information about who funded the local protests in Kitengela.

“They would only open the room every 24 hours to give us a small portion of ugali [maize meal] and would only give us 500ml of water once every 24 hours … [and] provided a small can that would be our toilet,” Jamil told Al Jazeera.

Eventually, the abductors blindfolded the brothers before driving them to a small town 14km (8.7 miles) north of Nairobi, called Gachie, where they abandoned them. The two later learned that one of their friends, also a protester, had also been abducted and released.

Incidents like this have been on the rise in recent years, targeting both locals and foreigners, with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) pointing to a “worrying pattern of abductions in several parts of our country”.

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Since the youth protest movement against the government erupted in June 2024, residents and rights groups say abductions have escalated.

Since then, there have been 82 cases of abductions and enforced disappearances with 29 people still missing, according to KNCHR. “Those abducted have been vocal dissidents,” the rights watchdog said.

Protesters targeted

During the 2024 protests, Kenyan youth took to the streets demanding political and economic reforms after President William Ruto introduced a controversial finance bill, which would have seen the costs of basic goods rise steeply. The weeks of protests were met with a heavy-handed crackdown by security forces in which dozens of people were killed.

Ruto eventually revoked the bill and the protests eased, but many took their dissent online. Rights groups say protesters and social media activists have continued to be tracked and harassed – and worse.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), which investigated the abductions, spoke to witnesses and survivors

HRW research found that the officers implicated in the abductions originated from agencies of the Kenyan National Police Service, such as the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and the National Intelligence Service.

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However, Kenya’s government and law enforcement agencies have denied any involvement in the abductions. The National Police Service did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests over email for comment regarding accusations of police involvement in enforced disappearances, while police spokesperson Michael Muchiri only said in a WhatsApp message that the role of the police “is to deal with all forms of criminality” and that “police have treated any of the reported cases with the appropriate and deserved attention”.

Although President Ruto, who previously called reports of abductions in Kenya “fake news”, finally acknowledged the issue in December and promised to tackle it, he did not accept government culpability.

“What has been said about abductions, we will stop them so Kenyan youth can live in peace,” he said at a stadium in Homa Bay, in western Kenya. But he also told parents to “take responsibility” for their children, in an apparent reference to youth protesters.

The month before, Ruto had addressed abductions in his annual state of the nation speech, condemning “any excessive or extrajudicial” action. However, he said many detentions were legitimate arrests against “criminals and subversive elements”.

In an interview with Al Jazeera’s Head to Head last week, Kimani Ichung’wah, the majority leader of the Kenyan National Assembly, repeated the government line that there are “criminal elements that have been involved” in the protests, also telling host Mehdi Hasan: “I do not believe there are enforced disappearances perpetrated by the state in Kenya, not in this day and age.”

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Civil society groups have, however, criticised Ichung’wah’s past comments on the matter – including allegedly spreading false claims that abductees are faking their own kidnappings for financial gain – while the Kenya Human Rights Commission called for his resignation.

According to the State of National Security annual report Ruto tabled in parliament in November, Kenya had already seen a 44 percent increase in abductions between September 2023 and August 2024, with the country recording 52 abductions compared with 36 during the same period the previous year.

Rights groups concerned

“There’s a public outcry about abductions. Some of the abducted are turning up dead, and the state is doing nothing to stop it or protect the people,” Otsieno Namwaya, East Africa director at HRW, told Al Jazeera.

“We have evidence suggesting that those who are abducting protesters and government critics are actually state agents,” Otsieno said. He added that peaceful meetings have been “disrupted violently by the police” and even citizens complaining about basic health and social issues are “being abducted or arrested like they had committed some serious crime”.

Otsieno said the abductions are “very worrying”.

Amnesty International Kenya, which has partnered with other rights groups and bodies to provide support and legal representation to more than 1,500 protesters, is also concerned about the “excessive force and violence during protests” as well as the abductions.

“We have publicly advocated for the release of abducted individuals, organised independent postmortems, and supported strategic litigation on habeas corpus cases that appeared to involve enforced disappearances,” said Houghton Irungu, Amnesty Kenya’s executive director, calling the cases of enforced disappearances and missing people “tragic” for the country.

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“It has led to the downgrading of Kenya’s democracy under the CIVICUS Global Monitor,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to the alliance of civil society organisations tracking civic freedoms.

“State violence must not be the response to citizens’ dissatisfaction or calls for accountability and responsive governance. The Kenyan authorities must return to the path of adherence to constitutionalism and international human rights law.”

Irungu argued that if Kenya fails to uphold both national and international human rights standards, this could affect its international standing, including on bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Council and the African Union.

“Kenya is on a very dangerous trajectory, a very slippery slope, and it doesn’t look like the government at the moment values human rights,” HRW’s Otsieno said.

He pointed to the Kenyan abductees as indicative of this but also “cross-border abductions”, which he said have been an issue of concern for HRW for years.

“We have seen South Sudanese abducted and renditioned back to South Sudan, where they have been killed. We have seen Ethiopians abducted and taken back to Ethiopia. We have seen Congolese abducted here and taken back to Congo, and we have seen Ugandans now being abducted here and taken back to Uganda.

“This whole operation contravenes Kenya’s international obligations.”

Foreigners abducted

Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a Tanzanian journalist and human rights activist living in Nairobi, is among the foreigners who have found themselves snatched off Kenya’s streets.

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She was leaving a salon in an upmarket part of Nairobi one afternoon in January when she noticed a woman watching her. Sarungi ordered an app-hailing cab, but when it arrived and she got in, two men opened the door and dragged her out, forcing her into a waiting van where they blindfolded her before driving off.

“I panicked,” she told Al Jazeera.

Sarungi used to run a television station in Tanzania, but after a government crackdown on independent media and other organisations with dissenting views, she was forced to shut down. She then moved to Kenya in 2020 and has continued her work, including writing on governance and political repression in Tanzania.

She believes her abduction was due to her criticism of the Tanzanian government. While she was being held in the moving vehicle, her captors tried to force her to give them her passcodes to access the mobile phone she uses for her activism work and to contact whistleblowers. One captor spoke in Swahili with what she could hear was a Tanzanian accent.

After Sarungi was abandoned on a darkened street four hours after being taken, a friend sent her a screenshot of a message thread from a WhatsApp group chat where members of Tanzania’s ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party were discussing her.

“After my abduction, I got [sent] a chat from the party’s WhatsApp group where a member rejoiced [effectively] saying, we pulled this off,” Sarungi said. Screenshots from the group chat were also leaked and shared by rights activists on social media.

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Sarungi is convinced that authorities in Tanzania and Kenya were involved in or at least aware of her kidnapping that day. She says, during her ordeal, her captors stopped at what sounded like a police checkpoint and believes they would not have made it through if the police were not on board with what was happening. Along with reaching out to the Kenyan National Police Service, Al Jazeera also contacted the Tanzanian police about Sarungi’s abduction. Neither responded.

Other foreigners have also been taken from Kenyan streets, with some handed over to their opponents back in their home countries. This includes Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye, whose lawyers say he was abducted in Nairobi in November and taken back to Kampala, where he is now in prison. In July, 36 members of Besigye’s party were also abducted. They were arrested by Kenyan police and handed over to their Ugandan counterparts and subsequently indicted on terrorism-related charges.

‘Secret unit’

Though Kenyan authorities continue to deny involvement in or knowledge about enforced disappearances, some comments by senior officials have been revealing.

In December, Kenya’s former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who fell out with Ruto last year over accusations of supporting the youth protests and was impeached, said “abducting young people is not a solution” and alleged that a secret unit was behind disappearances in the country.

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“There is a unit that is not under the command of the IG [inspector general] of police. There’s a building in Nairobi, the 21st floor at the city centre, where the unit is operating from, led by … a cousin to a very senior official in this government,” Gachagua told reporters in December.

Then on January 15, Justin Muturi, the cabinet secretary for public service, said his son Leslie Muturi was abducted during last year’s antigovernment protests, and claimed his abduction was carried out by the National Intelligence Service (NIS).

In a statement made to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Muturi said he went to see President Ruto after his son was taken. Ruto then called the NIS, after which Leslie was released, his statement added.

On January 30, National Police Service Inspector General Douglas Kanja and Director of Criminal Investigations Mohammed Amin were summoned to court to answer questions on the whereabouts of three youths – Justus Mutumwa, Martin Mwau, and Karani Muema – who had been abducted in mid-December in Mlolongo, a few kilometres outside Nairobi.

Kanja told the court that the three were not in police custody and their whereabouts were unknown.

A few hours later, however, Mutumwa’s body was located at a city morgue. Soon after, Mwau’s body was also found at the same morgue. Muema is still missing.

Activists and human rights lawyers said this raised questions about authorities’ competence and whether they were being fully honest with the public.

“The IG and DCI director came to court and said they have no idea yet fingerprints were taken and the body identified. It either means that they are not talking to each other or they do not have control over different agencies under the National Police Service, or they are lying to Kenyans,” said Faith Odhiambo, the president of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK).

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Kenyans and foreign nationals in the country are concerned for their safety, with blatant daytime abductions being carried out in public. Yet when IG Kanja appeared in court in January, he assured people that Kenya was safe.

“Your honour, I want to let the people of Kenya know they are safe. We have just come from the festive season, and throughout the entire season, people enjoyed Christmas because this country is safe. So, I want to assure you that we are safe,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Kitengela, the Longton brothers are still reeling from their month in captivity. They said, after enduring torture and trauma, they are now being followed by security agents.

Jamil, who is chairman of a local organisation called Kajiado County Human Rights Defenders, said despite the threats Kenyans face from the government, he encourages people to embrace their democratic right to protest.

“They used threats to say we should not go on protests again, or even come to the media because they would finish us, but that was just a tool,” he said. “Every other Kenyan as a patriot will exercise their constitutional right to picket and protest if they are unsatisfied.”

In Nairobi, Tanzanian activist Sarungi

The abduction incident has made her more cautious in her daily life in Kenya, but it has not broken her determination to seek a better society. She will not be silenced, she said.

“If we become silent, that is what they want us to do. Is there a price to pay? Yes. Does it mean that I will not live my life freely like before? Yes. But that will not stop us from calling out the bad governance we see in our society.”

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