内容摘要：“We have a real safety problem in South Africa, and I don’t think anyone wants to candy-coat that,” said John Steenhuisen, the agriculture minister and a member of the Democratic Alliance party, which is part of South Africa’s governing coalition.

“We have a real safety problem in South Africa, and I don’t think anyone wants to candy-coat that,” said John Steenhuisen, the agriculture minister and a member of the Democratic Alliance party, which is part of South Africa’s governing coalition.

Ugandan rights group Agora Discourse said on Friday that activist and journalist Agather Atuhaire had been “abandoned at the border by Tanzanian authorities” and showed signs of torture.The statement echoes reports regarding a Kenyan activist detained at the same time and released a day earlier, and supports complaints of a crackdown on democracy across East Africa.

Atuhaire had travelled to Tanzania alongside Kenyan anticorruption campaigner Boniface Mwangi to support opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who appeared in court on Monday.Both were arrested shortly after the hearing and held incommunicado.Tanzanian police had initially told local rights groups that the pair would be deported by air. However, Mwangi was discovered on Thursday on a roadside in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border.

Agora Discourse said it was “relieved to inform the public that Agather has been found”. However, the rights group’s cofounder Jim Spire Ssentongo confirmed to the AFP news agency on Friday that there were “indications of torture”.Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been accused of increasing authoritarianism, amid rising concerns regarding democracy across East Africa.

Activists travelling to Lissu’s trail accused Tanzania of “collaborating” with Kenya and Uganda in their “total erosion of democratic principles”.

Several high-profile political arrests have highlighted the rights record of Hassan, who plans to seek re-election in October.Israeli officials also strongly condemned the incident, describing it as a “despicable act of hatred”. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the shooting: “We are witnessing the terrible price of anti-Semitism and the wild incitement against the State of Israel.

“I have instructed to enhance security arrangements at Israeli missions around the world and to increase protection for state representatives,” Netanyahu said.On Thursday, reactions and condolences poured in from other countries as well.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the shooting a “heinous act” in a post on X, adding that at the moment “we must assume there was an anti-Semitic motive”.Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said: “Shocked by the shooting of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington DC. There is and should be no place in our societies for hatred, extremism, or antisemitism. I extend my condolences to the families of the victims and the people of Israel.”