Ethiopia on Wednesday released another 395 detainees held on suspicion of involvement in violent protests over last year's election, the state news agency reported according to Reuters. Most were detained in the aftermath of the disputed May 2005 poll which returned Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to power. Thousands were arrested and security forces killed more than 80 people in violence last June and November in Addis Ababa. Some 8,200 people arrested in the violence have now been released. The government's crackdown on the opposition and the media has prompted some Western donors to cut aid to impoverished Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa's second most populous country. "The prosecutor decided to release the 395 detainees in light of the low-level participation in the violence, their ages and their penitence," the office of the Prosecutor General said in a statement quoted by the Ethiopian News Agency. Ninety-eight others were indicted on evidence of their involvement in violence, it added. Among the remaining detainees, some 130, including senior opposition figures, are facing treason and genocide charges.
