While leaders of Tanzania’s main opposition party CHADEMA and hundreds of their supporters were released on Tuesday after mass arrests over a banned youth meeting, Amnesty International feared the actions of the authorities were part of efforts to intimidate the opposition.
The arrests come in the run up to local government elections later this year and a national election in 2025, Reuters reports.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan has taken some steps to ease restrictions on the media and opposition since coming to power in 2021, but rights groups say arbitrary detentions have continued.
Police banned the meeting in the city of Mbeya that CHADEMA’s youth wing planned to hold on Monday on the grounds that it was likely to “breach the peace”.
Party Chairman Freeman Mbowe and Vice Chairman Tundu Lissu, and more than 500 CHADEMA supporters were arrested over Sunday and Monday.
Mbowe and Lissu were released on bail on Monday.
The BBC reports that according to police in Tanzania, some of those arrested at the weekend remain in custody as they had failed to meet the requirements for bail.
The arrests raised fears that Tanzania was returning to the repressive rule of late President John Magufuli, despite his successor Samia Hassan lifting a ban on opposition gatherings and promising to restore competitive politics.