Algerian police in riot gear have used batons to break up a crowd of about 50 opposition supporters trying to take part in a protest march inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.
Police brandishing clubs, but no firearms, weaved their way through the crowd in central Algiers on Saturday, banging their shields, tackling some protesters and keeping traffic flowing through the planned march route.
The gathering, organised by the Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria (CNCD), comes a week after a similar protest, which organisers said brought an estimated 10,000 people and up to 26,000 riot police onto the streets of the capital. Officials, however, put turnout at the previous rally at 1,500.
Protesters in Bahrain fought past riot policemen who sprayed them with tear gas and shot at them with rubber bullets Saturday, retaking a central square and leading the country’s crown prince to say he had ordered security forces out of the area. The announcement set off a wave of jubilation among the thousands of protesters in Pearl Square, the heart of the country’s uprising.
Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who is also deputy commander of the military, announced in a statement that he had ordered the withdrawal of all military from the streets of Bahrain “with immediate effect,” adding that the Bahrain police force would continue to oversee law and order.
The number of people killed in three days of protests in Libya has risen to 84, according to the New York-based group Human Rights Watch.
The main focus of the demonstrations against Col Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule has been the second city Benghazi, where security forces are said to have attacked protesters again on Saturday. On Friday, one hospital in the city reported 35 deaths.
Supporters and opponents of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh fired shots in the air during rival demonstrations in Sanaa on Saturday, a day after five people were killed in protests against his 32-year rule.
Witnesses said hundreds of demonstrators threw stones at each other outside Sanaa University, injuring at least three anti-Saleh protesters. Some on both sides then fired pistols and assault rifles into the air in the first reported use of firearms by demonstrators, wounding two people.
A Reuters photographer saw one man with his face covered in blood and another being carried away by protesters.
Around 1,000 anti-Saleh demonstrators chanted “Leave! Leave!” and “The people want the fall of the regime!,” echoing the slogans of uprisings that toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt. Between 200 and 300 Saleh supporters called for dialogue.
Djiboutian authorities detained an opposition-party chief and plan to arrest two more as opponents of President Ismail Guelleh clashed with police a day after a protest against his rule, an exiled opposition leader said.
Mohamed Daoud Chehem, head of the Djibouti Party for Development, is in prison, Abdourahman Boreh said in a phone interview today from London. Police are searching for Ismael Guedi Hared, president of the Union for a Democratic Alternative, and Aden Robleh Awaleh, leader of the National Democratic Party, Boreh said.
“They have been charged with illegally demonstrating and disturbing the peace,” he said. A person who answered the phone at the National Gendarmerie’s main office in Djibouti City, the capital, said no one was immediately available to comment.
Anti-government protestors clashed with security forces in Djibouti on Saturday as the political uprising sweeping through the Middle East reached the tiny Horn of Africa state. (2)
