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| Africa North | |
| Police detain 400 protesters in Algeria | |
| 2011-02-13 | |
| [Arab News] Thousands of Algerians defied a government ban on protests and a massive deployment of riot police to rally in the capital Saturday, demanding democratic reforms a day after similar protests toppled Egypt's authoritarian leader. Heavily armed police tried to seal off the city of Algiers, blocking streets, lining up along the march route and setting up barricades outside the city to try to stop busloads of demonstrators from reaching the capital. But despite the heavy security, thousands flooded into downtown Algiers, clashing with police who reportedly outnumbered them at least three-to-one. A human rights ... which are not the same thing as individual rights, mind you... activist said more than 400 people were nabbed.
Protesters chanted "No to the police state!" and "Bouteflika out!" -- a reference to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has led the nation since 1999. The heavy police presence and barricades turned Saturday's 3-mile (5-kilometer) march into a rally at the First of May square. Ali Yahia Abdenour, head of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, said women and foreign journalists were among those jugged Saturday. Abdenour, 83, was also jostled by security forces who surrounded him and tried to persuade him to go home. Under Algeria's nearly two-decades-long state of emergency, protests are banned in the capital, but many ignored repeated government warnings to stay away. One activist called Saturday's protest a key turning point. "This demonstration is a success because it's been 10 years that people haven't been able to march in Algiers and there's a sort of psychological barrier," said Ali Rachedi, the former head of the Front of Socialist Forces party. "The fear is gone." Organizers said an estimated 28,000 security forces were on hand for the protest, which they said drew about 10,000 participants. Officials put the protest turnout at around 1,500. Said Sadi, head of the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy, RCD, said the scale of the police deployment showed "the fear of this government, which is in dire straits." "We're going to continue to demonstrate and to defy the authorities until they fall," Sadi vowed. Saturday's protest came just a day after an uprising in Egypt forced Hosni Mubarak to resign after 30 years in power and a month after another "people's revolution" in neighboring Tunisia forced autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile on Jan. 14. The success of those uprisings is fueling activists' hope for change in Algeria, although many in this conflict-scarred nation fear any prospect of violence after living through a brutal Islamist insurgency in the 1990s that left an estimated 200,000 people dead. | |
| Posted by:Fred |