Police in Tanzania released four senior opposition leaders who were arrested for their alleged role in deadly protests against last month’s general election, their party said late on Monday.
The protests plunged Tanzania into its biggest political crisis in decades. Opposition party CHADEMA and some human rights activists said more than 1,000 people were killed by security forces.
The government of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who was declared the winner of the election with nearly 98 percent of the vote, said those numbers were exaggerated but did not offer its own death toll.
Among those released on bail were CHADEMA Vice Chairman John Heche, who was arrested on October 22 and questioned on suspicion of terrorism, according to his lawyer, and Amani Golugwa, the party’s deputy secretary-general who was arrested over the weekend, the party said on X late on Monday.
CHADEMA leader Tundu Lissu was charged with treason in April. His exclusion from the presidential ballot was one major trigger of the protests.
