Algerian police block new protests

By Abdellah Cheballah (AFP)

ALGIERS — Several hundred riot police blocked a new opposition attempt to stage an anti-government march in the center of the Algerian capital Saturday.

The demonstration by about 100 people against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's decades-old regime had been meant to start two days after the government lifted a state of emergency in force for 19 years, amidst a split in the Algerian opposition.

But hundreds of police in helmets and shields blocked access to two central squares where protesters on Feb 12 and 19 tried to stage marches, which have been banned in the capital since 2001.

Police were backed up by armored vehicles as a helicopter flew overhead, but witnesses said their overall presence was less than for both earlier rallies this month.

Demonstrators, led by Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) leader Said Sadi, were unable to rally in Martyr square as planned, an AFP journalist saw. Sadi was surrounded by police before the scheduled start of the protest march at 1000 GMT. Another RCD lawmaker, Mohamed Khendek, was evacuated by ambulance.

"I was hit in the stomach with a club when I tried to resist the officers who took on Said Sadi. I passed out and they took me to a hospital. I'm not injured," he told AFP by telephone after leaving the hospital.

Police pushed RCD supporters to the nearby seafront.

Shouting his name, about 20 stalwarts of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika brandished his portraits and a banner in Arabic reading: "Algerians are pro-Bouteflika".

Finding themselves between the two groups, police averted any possible clashes.

A leading RCD figure, Madjid Yousfi, was confident that "the uprising in the region's countries will bring down all dictatorships as in the 1950s during decolonization".

Last weekend, protesters clashed with riot police who stopped a bid by some 3,000 people to march in the capital.

On Thursday, the 73-year-old Bouteflika also promised to place "anti-corruption" at the heart of government action, along with reforms to help the economy, employment and housing to regain Algerians' support and ward off a wave of unrest similar to the ones that engulfed Egypt and Tunisia.

Unprecedented protests were staged in January that left five dead.

The latest protest was called after a split in the opposition this week.

While the RCD vowed it would march Saturday "and every Saturday" its former ally, the National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD), an opposition umbrella group formed last month, begged out, saying it planned to "revamp the movement".

The CNCD has said it wants the immediate end of Bouteflika's regime, citing the same problems of high unemployment, housing and soaring costs that inspired the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

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