And as the Los Angeles Times reported on their blogsite this morning:Thousands turn out for pro-reform protest in Algeria
ALGIERS, Algeria — The Associated Press
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Thousands of riot police tried to seal off the Algerian capital on Saturday to prevent activists from holding a banned pro-democracy rally a day after Egypt's authoritarian leader was toppled.
Police blocked off streets in Algiers and set up security barricades at strategic points along the march route and outside the city to try to stop busloads of demonstrators from reaching the capital. Armed police were also posted near newspaper headquarters.
Despite the massive deployment, thousands of people defied the government ban, flooding into downtown Algiers where they faced some skirmishes with police. Some arrests were reported as police tried to disperse the crowd.
Protesters chanted slogans including "No to the police state" and "Bouteflika out," — a reference to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has led this sprawling North African nation since 1999.
Under Algeria's long-standing state of emergency — in place since 1992 — protests are banned in Algiers, but repeated government warnings for people to stay away Saturday fell on deaf ears.
Still, news reports suggested security forces outnumbered demonstrators. The Algerian daily La Liberte said some 30,000 riot police had been deployed in the capital, while organizers estimated 10,000 came to march.
The march comes at a sensitive time — just a day after an uprising in Egypt forced Hosni Mubarak to resign after 30 years in power and merely a month after another "people's revolution" in neighboring Tunisia forced longtime autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile on Jan. 14.
The success of those uprisings is fueling hope for change in Algeria, although many in this conflict-scarred nation fear any prospect of violence after living through a brutal Islamist insurgency in the 1990s that left an estimated 200,000 dead.
Saturday's march focused on reforms pushing Algeria toward democracy but did not include a specific call to oust Bouteflika. It was organized by the Coordination for Democratic Change in Algeria, an umbrella group for human rights activists, unionists, lawyers and others.
Still, a markedly anti-government sentiment was in the air Saturday. Under the headline "Mubarak pushed from power," a cartoon in La Liberte showed the score Egypt-1, Algeria-0 and a fan waving an Algerian flag saying "we've got to tie the score."
The atmosphere in Algeria has been tense since early January, when people took to the streets in five days of rioting over rising food prices. In a bid to quell tensions, the government announced it would slash the price of sugar and cooking oil.
Poverty is endemic, despite Algeria's vast oil and gas reserves, and anger over unemployment and a lack of opportunities also helped fuel last month's riots.
Mindful of the Tunisian protests, Algerian authorities announced last week that the country's nearly two-decade-long state of emergency will be lifted in the "very near future." However, authorities warned that even then the ban on demonstrations in the capital would remain.
The army's decision to cancel Algeria's first multiparty legislative elections in January 1992 to thwart a likely victory by a Muslim fundamentalist party set off the insurgency. Scattered violence continued Saturday.
The YouTube video of the police beatings:Algerian police cracked down on demonstrators at a banned Egypt-inspired anti-government march Saturday in the Algerian capital, clashing with protesters and arresting rally-goers, media reports said.
A journalist with the Agence France Presse news agency said that around 2,000 demonstrators were out in the streets of Algiers forcing a police cordon.
According to Algerian human rights activist Mustapha Bouchachi, Algerian security forces detained 100 demonstrators at the march, which had been called by the National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD), an umbrella group of opposition parties and civil society movements.
“This is evidence that the authorities don’t accept peaceful demonstrations,” Bouchachi told Bloomberg News at the protest. "2011 will be a year for change. This is the first attempt.”
There were reports that those arrested include a deputy from the Algerian opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy, Othmane Maazouz.
Video footage, posted on YouTube and said to have been filmed at Saturday's protest in Algiers, appears to show police beating a protester with sticks and hauling him away. In the backgound, demonstrators are heard shouting, "The people want the fall of the regime," in Arabic, the same slogan chanted by Egyptian revolutionaries.
The CNCD had called for a mass protest Saturday demanding democratic change and more job opportunities, but only about 50 people had managed to get to the May 1 Square in central Algiers early Saturday, according to the Reuters news agency. The small group of protesters were seen shouting anti-government slogans and calling for the ouster of the Algerian president while surrounded by a field of police officers, added the report.
The Algerian French daily El Watan reported that the atmosphere was very tense at the square on Saturday afternoon, with police reinforcements being deployed and throngs of supporters of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika trying to provoke demonstrators.
Algerian officials had banned the opposition march, and thousands of police in riot gear reportedly fanned out in the Algerian capital earlier on Saturday to stop the demonstration and prevent protesters from trying to stage an Egypt-style revolt.
As anti-government demonstrations spread across the Arab world, President Bouteflika announced earlier this month that the government would soon remove the country's state of emergency, which has been in place for the past 19 years. He also vowed to allow demonstrations, currently banned under the emergency law, to be held across the country except in the capital, Algiers.
Earlier this year, Algeria witnessed rioting over high commodity prices and unemployment. The rioting reportedly resulted in four deaths and hundreds of injuries.
--Alexandra Sandels in Beirut
Reports are conflicted as to the size of the protest. Officials are claiming only 1,500 protestors while organisers are claiming 10,000, facing off against 28,000 riot police who had been deployed to clamp down the streets and First of May Square.
The narrative in American news media seems again to be spinning Islamist inspiration for this event, but it has the feel of an uprising which is being touched off for reasons that shade a bit closer to Marx than Mohammed. As in Tunisia and Egypt: workers and students who have found every opportunity for a future cut off for them and now finally driven to the point where they're not going to tolerate it anymore.
I mean, you did sing the "Quaddafi get out" tune along with every other Western nation, despite the fact Quaddafi was doing a far better job at developing Libya than Sadat or Mubarak did for Egypt. The difference was that the Sadat-Mubarak regime was a Western client, whereas Libya was a "rogue state" that sponsored anti-Western terrorism.
