Zara Kay has been left shaken and traumatised after she was arrested and charged in Tanzania allegedly for a satirical social media post, her friend has said.
Ms Kay is the founder of Faithless Hijabi, an organisation which supports women who have been abused for leaving Islam and, while she was born in Tanzania, she is also an Australian citizen.
It is understood Ms Kay went to a police station in the city of Dar es Salaam on December 28, where she was arrested and charged, and held in custody for 32 hours.
"I'm out on bail, thank you all for the support," Ms Kay said in a tweet on January 1.
"I'm still quite traumatised from everything.
"Please don't stop fighting for me."
Fellow activist and co-coordinator for the campaign to have the charges against Ms Kay dropped, Halima Salat, said sources in Tanzania told her describing Ms Kay as being traumatised were "to put it lightly" and that she had been badly affected by the experience.
It is understood Ms Kay has been charged for not handing in her Tanzanian passport when she received Australian citizenship, and over a social media post she made in May 2020.
Ms Salat said the post featured a story about a Tanzanian who was arrested for making a joke about the country's President.
"The post basically was a BBC article that was covering this story … and her reaction was that this is dumb, everybody can laugh at anything they want to laugh at, why would people be arrested for laughing," Ms Salat said.
Ms Salat said the charges against Ms Kay did not make sense.
"We've been campaigning … to authorities to drop these trumped up charges," she said.
"We do believe strongly that someone from the community that she's from, which is a Muslim community, because Zara is so vocal in her activism, we believe that initially it was a report done by a member of that community.
"It's hard to get hard evidence of who, but we already know why."
Ms Salat, who is also an ex-Muslim from Kenya, said women who left Islam were usually subject to significant abuse and persecution.
Arrest a blow for broader campaign
As well as the toll it is taking on Ms Kay, Ms Salat said the arrest sent the message that those who spoke out against Islam could be subject to similar repercussions.
"The majority of our visibility is to give hope and encouragement to a lot of people who we support in our various organisations, and when something like this happens it really absolutely pushes ex-Muslims back into the closet and not even be able to dare say 'I don't believe'," she said.
"This is a fundamental human right, to believe what you want and not believe what you don't believe in."
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) spokesperson has confirmed consular assistance is being provided to the Australian passport holder.
"The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to an Australian in Tanzania," they said.
"Owing to our privacy obligations we will not provide further comment."
