The leaders of Tanzania’s main opposition party Chadema have been released on bail, a party spokesperson said on Tuesday, a day after they were detained in the southwestern town of Mbeya ahead of a youth day rally.
In a post on X, the party spokesperson said Chadema chairman Freeman Mbowe and his deputy Tundu Lissu – both former presidential candidates – “have been returned to Dar es Salaam by police and have bailed themselves out”.
The police chief of operations and training, Awadh Haji, says “all the top Chadema leaders who were arrested, after interrogation and other procedures, have been returned to where they came from”.
Rights groups and opponents of the government voiced fears the police action could signal a return to the oppressive policies of late president John Magufuli as the country gears up for elections due late next year.
The arrests came despite his successor Samia Suluhu Hassan vowing a return to “competitive politics” and easing some restrictions on the opposition and the media, including the January 2023 lifting of a six-year ban on opposition gatherings.
Meanwhile, Global rights group Amnesty International urged Tanzania to “halt the mass arrests and arbitrary detention of government critics”.
