More than 200 people have been charged with "treason" in Tanzania in connection with the brutally suppressed protests that marred the recent elections, judicial sources told AFP.

On Friday, hundreds of people were brought before the court in the economic capital, Dar es Salaam.

More than 250 people have been charged with "treason" and "conspiracy to commit treason" in three separate cases, lawyer Peter Kibatala told AFP outside the court on Friday evening.

Judicial sources at the court told AFP they were aware of at least 240 indictments.

According to indictments seen by AFP, most of the defendants are accused of having, on October 29, the day of the election, wanted to "obstruct the (presidential and legislative) elections of 2025, with the aim of intimidating the executive branch".

On Saturday, the main opposition party, Chadema, announced that its deputy secretary general, Amani Golugwa, had been arrested by police in Arusha, in the northeast of the country.

"The arrest of the deputy secretary general means that only three of the party's six top leaders are still at large," Chadema stressed in a statement published on the X platform.

On Friday evening, the police indicated they were searching for several Chadema executives, including Mr. Golugwa, but also its secretary general, John Mnyika, and its spokesperson, Brenda Rupia, calling on them in a statement to "surrender immediately".

Chadema chairman Tundu Lissu was arrested in April and is awaiting trial on treason charges, for which he faces the death penalty. The party's vice-chairman, John Heche, arrested days before the elections, was charged on November 5 with "participation in terrorist acts."

The protest movement that spontaneously erupted on election day and continued for several days was violently suppressed.

Mr. Chadema reported at least 800 deaths. Diplomatic and security sources corroborated the idea that hundreds, if not thousands, of people had been killed in connection with the elections.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan officially won the presidential election, from which her two main rivals had been barred, with nearly 98% of the vote. However, foreign observers questioned the credibility of the election, which Chadema described as a "parody of democracy."

Tanzanian authorities have so far refused to release any official death toll, only vaguely mentioning "lives lost." Although they blocked the internet for five days and then attempted to prevent the publication of photos and videos of the victims of the crackdown, these images began appearing on social media earlier this week.