Pro-Democracy Fever Comes to Algeria

Posted on Feb 12, 2011

news.bbc.co.uk

Protesters crowd into 1 May Square in Algiers for a pro-democracy rally on Saturday.

Are we seeing the next “Battle of Algiers”? Coming only a day after the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, thousands of people defied a government ban to hold a pro-democracy rally in Algeria.

Shouting “Bouteflika out!” in reference to the country’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, protesters joined an upwelling in the region demanding more freedoms and improved living conditions.

Algeria has been under a state of emergency since 1992.

The BBC:

The protesters gathered at Algiers’ 1 May Square on Saturday morning.

They chanted “Bouteflika out!”—in reference to the country’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Some demonstrators waved copies of a newspaper front page with the headline about the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Friday, Reuters reports.

About 30,000 police are reportedly deployed in and around [the] capital, and extra police with water cannons are on stand-by.

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