Protests spread to Algeria, Yemen
- Source: Global Times
- [08:33 February 14 2011]
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Amazigh Kateb, an Algerian singer and musician, participates with around 2,000 other people in a demonstration Saturday in Algiers. Photo: AFP
Anti-government sentiment continued to spread in Algeria and Yemen over the weekend in the wake of protests that had forced out leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.
In Algeria, up to 2,000 demonstrators evaded massed police to rally in a central Algiers square, calling for the departure of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Ringed by hundreds of riot police, some of whom carried automatic weapons in addition to clubs and shields, they waved a large banner reading "Regime, out" and chanted slogans borrowed from the mass protests in Tunis and Cairo.
However, police were deployed in their tens of thousands to prevent a planned four-kilometer march from May 1 Square to Martyrs Square.
The demonstrators included both the head of the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), Said Sadi, and his one-time enemy, Ali Belhadj, the former leader of the now-banned Islamist Salvation Front.
A knot of police surrounded Sadi to prevent him from using a loudspeaker to address the crowd, while a number of arrests were made.
Fodil Boumala, one of the founders of the National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD), which called the march, was jubilant. "We've broken the wall of fear; this is only a beginning," he said. "The Algerians have won back their capital."
