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Youths 'attack Algerian protesters' #Algeria #Revolution

Anti-government protesters have been attacked in the Algerian capital and an attempt made to lynch a prominent opposition politician, local media have said.

The reports said that protests organised by the National Co-ordination for Democracy and Change (CNDC) in Algiers were violently suppressed on Saturday morning.

According to the the Algerian daily newspaper El Watan, a group of youths tried to lynch Said Sadi, the president of the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD).

Dozens of youths wearing banners supporting Abdelaziz Bouteflicka, the Algerian president, forced Sadi to flee in his car after they threatened to kill him in the al-Madania neighbourhood of Algiers, the publication said.

The CNDC is an umbrella group that was founded in January in the wake of riots that killed five people and wounded over 800.

Other recent protests in Algeria have been violently supressed by security forces. The CNDC has lost support from other opposition groups, which argue Sadi has exploited them for personal political gain.

Algeria recently repealed its controversial state of emergency, but public protest remains banned.

Pan-Maghreb solidarity

Meanwhile, Algeria’s oldest opposition party has urged Algerians to engage in a “peaceful struggle” for change in the nation a day ahead of a planned anti-government demonstration in the capital.

Distancing itself from the protests organised by the CNDC, the Socialist Forces Front (FFS) focused on its historic pan-Maghreb roots, expressing solidarity with similar struggles in neighbouring Tunisia, Morocco and Libya.

“We need a peaceful struggle every day. It’s this civic exercise that … will bring change,” Karim Tabbou, the first secretary of the FFS, told a gathering of about 3,000 people in Algiers.

“We will not get caught in confrontation and violence,” he added, speaking in a room decorated with portraits of Hocine Ait-Ahmed, the party’s leader.

Ait-Ahmed, 84, was one of the earliest leaders of the struggle against French colonial rule.

Those present at the meeting called for the creation of a new pan-North African group “Maghreb for the people” as opposed to the now-defunct Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), founded in 1989 by Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia.

“Neither Morocco or Algeria will be exceptions [to the wave of uprisings] change is inevitable,” declared Mustapha Labraimi of the Moroccan Party for Progress and Socialism (PPS).

The UMA broke down in 1994 due to political differences among its members and the longrunning conflict between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara.

Mustapha Bouchachi, the president of the Algerian Human Rights League, called for more freedom after years of civil strife.

“People the world over deserve to enjoy freedom and democracy, but I don’t know of another people which has sacrificed so much to fight for its freedom and obtain its independence,” he said.

Thousands Turn Out For Anti-Govt Protests In Algeria : NPR #Algeria #Feb12

Organizers of an anti-government demonstration in the Algerian capital say several thousand people have gathered in the city center.

Under the country’s long-standing state of emergency, protests are banned in the capital, Algiers, and hundreds of riot police were on hand Saturday. They blocked streets and charged the crowd in a bid to prevent protesters from reaching the city center.

Demonstrators chanted “no to the police state” and “Bouteflika out,” a reference to the country’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who’s been in power since 1999.

Saturday’s protest comes the day after massive protests in Egypt toppled the president, and weeks after similar demonstrations in neighboring Tunisia also succeeded in ousting the president.

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

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Hundreds of police began taking up positions the night before a pro-democracy protest march in Algiers by militants who have vowed to defy an official ban.

The planned march on Saturday is aimed at pressing for reforms to push this oil- and gas-rich North African giant toward democracy.

The weeks-long uprising in Egypt that forced Hosni Mubarak to abandon the presidency after 30 years was bound to fuel the hopes of Algerians seeking change — as did the “people’s revolution” in neighboring Tunisia. A month of deadly uprisings there pushed Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile Jan. 14.

However, many Algerians fear any prospect of conflict after years of a brutal insurgency by Islamist extremists that has left an estimated 200,.000 dead. There is no specific call by organizers of the protest march to oust President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

With scattered strikes and clashes, including five days of rioting in early January, the atmosphere in Algiers has been tense.

There have been numerous copy-cat suicides, and attempted suicides, in Algeria like the self-immolation attempt by a young man that set off the Tunisian protests in mid-December.

The Coordination for Democratic Change in Algeria, an umbrella group of human rights activists, unionists, lawyers and others, insists the march will take place despite numerous warnings by authorities to stay out of the streets.

Buses and vans filled with armed police were posted at strategic points along the march route and around Algiers, including at the “Maison de la Presse,” a small village in Algiers where newspapers have their headquarters.

The daily El Watan said Friday that barrages were thrown up on roads leading to Algiers, apparently to stop busloads of potential demonstrators expected to descend on the capital.

In a clear bid to placate militants, Algerian authorities announced last week that a state of emergency in place since 1992, at the start of the Islamist insurgency, will be lifted in the “very near future.” However, it maintained a ban on demonstrations in the capital. Authorities offered to allow Saturday’s demonstrators to rally in a meeting hall.

The army’s decision to cancel this nation’s first multi-party legislative elections in January 1992 to thward a likely victory by a Muslim fundamentalist party set off the insurgency. Scattered violence continues.