Protests planned in Libya & Algeria

[Political Junky]

Libya, Algeria Cut Football to Thwart Protests | mideastposts.com | mideastposts.com

Anti-government protests sweeping North Africa that have effectively ended the rule of authoritarian presidents in Egypt and Tunisia have made soccer match cancellations the region’s flavour of the day.
Oil-rich Libya and gas-rich Algeria have indefinitely extended their suspension of all soccer matches with anti-government demonstrations planned for February 12 in Algiers and February 17 in Benghazi and Tripoli. The cancellations are intended to prevent the pitch from becoming a platform for protests. <more>

 

[waltky]

Protesters bein' arrested in Algeria...

Thousands demand reforms in Algeria; 400 arrested
Feb 12,`11 -- Heavily outnumbered by riot police, thousands of Algerians defied government warnings and dodged barricades to rally in their capital Saturday, demanding democratic reforms a day after mass protests toppled Egypt's autocratic ruler.

Protesters chanting "No to the police state!" and brandishing signs that read "Give us back our Algeria" clashed with baton-wielding police in helmets and visors. Organizers said more than 400 people were briefly detained, but aside from some jostling between police and protesters no violence was reported. The opposition said demonstrators' bold defiance of a long-standing ban on public protests in Algiers marked a turning point.

"This demonstration is a success because it's been 10 years that people haven't been able to march in Algiers and there's a sort of psychological barrier," said Ali Rachedi, the former head of the Front of Socialist Forces party. "The fear is gone." Organizers said as many as 26,000 riot police were deployed to try to quash Saturday's rally, but that an estimated 10,000 people succeeded in jostling, squeezing and jumping over the barricades and gathering in the city center before the protest was broken up. Officials put turnout at the rally at 1,500.

Algeria has long been ruled by a repressive government and beset by widespread poverty and high unemployment - factors that helped foment popular uprisings that ousted leaders of two other North African nations in the past month. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign Friday after 30 years in power, and a "people's revolution" in Tunisia, Algeria's neighbor to the east, forced autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile on Jan. 14. Tensions have been high in Algeria since early January, when five days of riots over high food prices left three people dead.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika hails from a single-party system that has loosened but remained in power since Algeria's independence from colonial master France in 1962. He is credited with helping the nation recover from a brutal Islamist insurgency that ripped the country asunder during the 1990s, killing an estimated 200,000 people. But opponents say he should have long ago ended a state of emergency declared at the start of that civil strife, and is doing too little to use Algeria's vast oil and gas wealth to help the bulk of its 35 million people.

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ANALYSIS: Fallout from popular uprising in Egypt likely to be felt throughout Middle East
Sun, Feb 13, 2011 - Less than a month after the world watched Tunisia celebrate the collapse of the country’s strong-arm ruler, the scenes in central Cairo on Friday offered an even more potent display of the newfound power of the Arab street — fist-pumping crowds cheering the end of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

The downfall of Mubarak — one of the mainstays of Middle East politics and Western policies in the region for nearly three decades — marks another history-shaping moment for the Arab world from a country seen by many as its political and cultural crucible. What began as a tentative cry against an entrenched regime late last month, grew into a popular mutiny that forced Mubarak to flee Cairo and then step down in just a few dizzying hours.

However, the revolution on the Nile — which reached its climax 32 years to the day after the fall of the government of the US-backed shah of Iran — raises deep questions about the long-term stability of other Western-allied regimes across the region and could significantly recalibrate the US’ policy playbook from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. There is no guarantee that the reform wave will wash over another country soon. An attempt to stir Egypt-inspired protests in Syria earlier this month was snuffed out by security forces.

The reverberations, however, are already being felt in smaller, but significant ways. In Saudi Arabia — the other traditional cornerstone of US interests in the Middle East — a group of opposition activists said on Thursday they asked the nation’s king for the right to form a political party in a rare challenge to the absolute power of the ruling dynasty. “You know well that big political developments, and attention to freedom and human rights is currently happening in the Islamic world,” the activists said in a letter to King Abdullah, who was one of Mubarak’s staunchest supporters up until the end.

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[Madeline]

(NEWSER) &#8211; From Tahrir Square to Algeria's May 1 Square: Thousands of demonstrators inspired by Egypt marched in Algiers today despite an official ban on protests and a huge police presence, reports AP. Estimates of the crowd ranged from 10,000 to 30,000, and rights activists say at least 400 have been arrested. They're demanding political reform in the North African country, where poverty is rampant even though it's one of the world's biggest oil producers, notes the Wall Street Journal. Tunisia is a next-door neighbor.
Chants of "No to the police state!" and "Bouteflika out!"&#8212;meaning President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has ruled since 1999&#8212;could be heard. Algeria had smaller protests in January, immediately after Tunisia sent its leader packing, but the government restored order in part by reversing a hike in food prices. Hosni Mubarak's ousting apparently reignited passions.

Inspired by Egypt, Algerians Take to Streets - Demonstrators demand political reform; hundreds arrested

If you subscribe to the WSJ, please open the article linked in Newser and share it.

I wonder...is democracy contagious? Is this a domino effect?

 

[waltky]

Looks like Algerian gov't. learnin' from Mubarak's mistake, tryin' to get out ahead of the protests...

Algeria to repeal state of emergency, minister says
Tue, Feb 15, 2011 - NEXT TO FALL?On Saturday, nearly 30,000 police prevented about 2,000 protesters marching the 4km from May 1 Square to Martyrs Square in the capital

The 19-year-old state of emergency in Algeria will end within days, Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci said yesterday, brushing off concerns that recent protests in the country could escalate. A state of emergency has been in force in Algeria since 1992 and the government has come under pressure from opponents, inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, to ditch emergency laws. “In the coming days, we will talk about [the state of emergency] as if it was a thing of the past,” Medelci told the French radio station Europe 1 in an interview. “That means that in Algeria we will have a return to a state of law that allows complete freedom of expression, within the limits of the law.”

Recent protests had been organized by minority groups with limited support, the minister said, adding that there was no risk of the government being overthrown as in Tunisia. However, he suggested the government may be willing to make concessions, saying: “The decision to change the government lies with the president, who will assess the possibility as he has done in the past, to make adjustments, as he has done in the past.”

“Algeria is not Tunisia or Egypt,” he said. However, the National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD), a coalition of opposition parties, rights groups and unofficial unions, on Sunday announced a new march scheduled for Friday in the capital, despite a longstanding ban on demonstrations.

It will start from May 1 Square, where a demonstration took place on Saturday, said lawyer Moustepha Bouchachi, president of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, which is part of the CNCD. On Saturday, nearly 30,000 police prevented about 2,000 protesters marching the 4km from May 1 Square to Martyrs Square. The security forces made 14 arrests — 300 according to the opposition.

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[waltky]

Moomar gettin' mean...

Group says 24 died in Libyan crackdown
Sat, Feb 19, 2011 - Libyan security forces killed at least 24 people in a violent crackdown on anti-regime demonstrations during a &#8220;Day of Anger&#8221; against leader Muammar Qaddafi, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday.

The New York-based rights group, citing witnesses, said 24 protesters were killed and scores injured during Thursday&#8217;s assaults on protests in two Libyan cities. &#8220;The authorities should cease the use of lethal force unless absolutely necessary to protect lives and open an independent investigation into the lethal shootings,&#8221; HRW said in a statement. The worst violence hit the eastern city of Al-Baida, where hospital staff put a call out on Thursday for additional medical supplies to treat 70 injured protesters, half in critical condition, the rights group said.

One injured protester sitting near the hospital&#8217;s intensive care unit told HRW that security forces had used live ammunition to deter protesters, fatally shooting 16 of them and wounding dozens others. In Benghazi, hundreds of lawyers, activists, and other protesters gathered on the steps of the court on Thursday calling for a Constitution and respect for the rule of law.

A protester told HRW that groups of men in street clothes armed with knives, later joined by internal security forces, charged into the crowd to disperse the demonstration. He said he believed security forces had shot dead at least 17, HRW said, adding that it was able to confirm eight of those deaths. &#8220;The security forces&#8217; vicious attacks on peaceful demonstrators lay bare the reality of Muammar Qaddafi&#8217;s brutality when faced with any internal dissent,&#8221; said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at HRW. &#8220;Libyans should not have to risk their lives to make a stand for their rights as human beings,&#8221; she said.

Libya&#8217;s state news agency says Qaddafi had toured the capital Tripoli, trying to rally loyalists. More demonstrations were expected yesterday, and witnesses say protesters camped out in a central area of Benghazi. The state news agency JANA says that Qaddafi&#8217;s convoy toured Tripoli late on Thursday to rally support. A pro-Qaddafi online paper said one of his sons had visited security forces in eastern Libya where many of the protests took place to offer financial help.

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Doctor Says 35 Killed in East Libya Amid Unrest
Feb 18, 2011 - A Libyan doctor says 35 protesters were killed in the eastern city of Benghazi during clashes Friday with security forces amid protests demanding the ouster of the longtime leader.

The doctor from al-Jalaa hospital says he counted 35 bodies received at his hospital alone, starting in the afternoon Friday. He says witnesses and survivors told him most of the victims came from an attempted protest outside the residential compound used by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi when he visits Benghazi. He says security forces inside the compound fired on protesters demonstrating outside. The doctor spoke on condition his name not be used for fear of retaliation. He said he could not keep track of the number of wounded.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

CAIRO -- Protesters battled with security forces for control of neighborhoods Friday in eastern Libya where dozens have reportedly been killed in two days of clashes, as a leadership congress controlled by Moammar Gadhafi pledged a change in government adminstrators, trying to ease demonstrations demanding the longtime leader's ouster.

Residents in the eastern city of Beyida said security reinforcements had been bused in, including what they said where foreign African mercenaries, to put down protesters who burned police stations. But local police, who belong to the same tribe as the residents, were battling alongside protesters against security forces, two witnesses in the city told The Associated Press.

A hospital official in Beyida said Friday that the bodies of at least 23 protesters slain over the past 48 hours were at his facility, which was treating about 500 wounded - some in the parking lot for lack of beds. Another witness reported 26 protesters buried Thursday and early Friday. "We need doctors, medicine and everything," the hospital official said.

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