Ebcouraged by the success of democracy movements in Egypt, more than 2,000 are demanding the resignation of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika Algerian. (EPA)
ALGIERS, Algeria — Up to 2,000 demonstrators evaded massed police today to rally in a central Algiers square demanding that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika step down as the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia had done.
Ringed by hundreds of anti-riot forces, some carrying automatic weapons in addition to clubs and shields, they waved a large banner reading “Regime, out” and chanted slogans borrowed from the mass protests in Tunis and Cairo.
But thousands of police prevented a planned three-mile march from May 1 Square to Martyrs Square.
The demonstrators included both the head of the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy, Said Sadi, and his one-time enemy Ali Belhadj, former leader of the now-banned Islamist Salvation Front.
A knot of police surrounded Sadi to prevent him using a megaphone to address the crowd, while a number of arrests were made, journalists said.
By afternoon, only some 150 mainly young protesters were left in a corner of the square, still chanting defiantly.
But Fodil Boumala, one of the founders of the National Coordination for Change and Democracy, which called the march, was jubilant.
“We’ve broken the wall of fear, this is only a beginning,” he said, adding, “The Algerians have won back their capital.”
There were scuffles with security forces and numerous arrests well before the march had been due to begin at 11:00a.m., witnesses said.
Authorities said 14 people had been held and then released but the head of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, Mustapha Bouchachi, said there had been 300 arrests in Algiers and elsewhere.
“Some were freed but other are still being held,” he said.