ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia announced on Wednesday it will release jailed opposition figures as part of an amnesty program to create national consensus and speed up democratization.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the Office of Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, said an infamous detention center Maekalwi located in Addis Ababa will also be closed.

The statement didn't give details on the identity of those who will be released or when Maekalwi will be closed.

Opposition supporters and activists accuse the Ethiopian government of using the detention center to coerce confessions from suspects usually charged under an anti-terror law.

Ethiopia faced in 2016 unrest that killed hundreds, dubbed by analysts the gravest challenge to the ruling coalition Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front in 25 years.

The unrest involving the country's two most populous regional states of Oromia and Amhara led to an imposition of martial law in October 2016 which was only lifted in August 2017.

Many ethnic Oromos and Amharas which make about 33 and 27 percent of Ethiopia's estimated 100 million population accuse ethnic Tigrayans who make up six percent of the nation's population of unduly dominating the country's political and economic scene.