Police prevented students from marching in Algiers, as they do every Tuesday, for the first time since the Hirak pro-democracy movement resumed marches in late February, according to journalists and witnesses.
Police officers, deployed in large numbers in the center of the capital, dispersed the protesters and carried out numerous arrests on the Place des Martyrs, at the foot of the famous Casbah (old town), the starting point of the weekly parade of students.
Those arrested were then taken in police vans to police stations in the wilaya (prefecture) of Algiers, testified Karim, a trader used to student marches. At midday, only police officers were present at Place des Martyrs and in the alleys that the procession traditionally takes, according to an AFP photographer. The Algerian League for Human Rights (LADDH) rose up against police repression and denounced a ” new authoritarian drift “.
The ban on the demonstration comes amid intensifying repression against Iraqi militants, political opponents and journalists, ahead of the early parliamentary elections organized by the regime on June 12. According to the specialist site Algerian Detainees , 66 prisoners of conscience are currently imprisoned in the country, prosecuted in connection with the Hirak and / or individual freedoms. Born in February 2019 from the massive rejection of a fifth term of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Hirak calls for a radical change in the political “ system ” in place since independence in 1962.
