Hirak demonstrators in Algeria, including students and teachers, marched again Tuesday in Algiers against the “road map” of the regime which decided to organize early legislative elections, without taking into account the demands of the pro-democracy movement , AFP noted.
Seeming less provided than in previous weeks, the procession of the Hirakists expressed its refusal of the legislative ballot announced by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and scheduled for June.
“Tebboune leaves, there will be no elections“, “Transfer power to the people“, chanted the demonstrators.
“Regarding the next vote for Parliament, it is only a play because the + system + is illegitimate,” Amira, an 18-year-old student, told AFP.
“I am addressing the Algerian people and those of the Hirak: do not vote! If you do, it is the end of Algeria“, added a 70-year-old retiree who did not want to give his name .
The demonstrators demanded the “immediate” release “of the prisoners of conscience in Algeria, one of them holding up a portrait of Miloud Benrouane, a student imprisoned in Biskra (north-east) since October 2020.
The rally – in principle banned due to the Covid-19 pandemic – ended without incident.
Marches also took place in Oran (north-west) and Béjaïa, in Kabylia (north-east), according to local media.
Some protesters also proclaimed their support for the four activists established abroad against whom the Algerian justice issued international arrest warrants on Sunday, accusing them of belonging to a terrorist group and of subversive activities.
Among these anti-regime activists, figure Mohamed Larbi Zeitout, one of the founders and leaders of the Islamo-conservative movement Rachad, bête noire of the authorities and banned in Algeria. Mr Zeitout, a 57-year-old former diplomat, went into exile in London in 1995 and holds British nationality.
Also in the sights of justice are Amir Boukhors, blogger known as “Amir Dz”, Hichem Aboud, a journalist, and a former gendarme, Abdellah Mohamed, member of Rachad.
According to the authorities, Rachad, which regroups former militants of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS, dissolved in March 1992), seeks to infiltrate the Hirak and drag it into violence.
Born in February 2019 from the massive rejection of a 5th term of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, helpless and reclusive, the Hirak calls for a radical change in the political “system” in place since the country’s independence in 1962.
This unprecedented popular movement in Algeria is peaceful, plural – from secularists to Islamists – and without any real leadership or political structure to date.
