The police, deployed in large numbers in the centre of the capital Algiers, prevented the start of the student hirak march.
According to media sources, an extraordinary system has been deployed on the various arteries of the capital.
However, the students had taken precautions to avoid the scenario of last week which resulted in the abortion of their march for the first time since the launch of the popular movement in February 2019.
In fact, they met at the main post office instead of the Place des Martyrs to launch their march, but they were surprised by a police presence that was much more impressive than usual.
According to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees, the security services made numerous arrests among the students, who were then taken in police vans to police stations in the wilaya of Algiers.
In Bejaia (East), students took to the streets again to mark this 115th Tuesday of the hirak.
Despite the fast, thousands of students demonstrated to demand the departure of the regime in power, as well as the release of demonstrators detained during previous marches and of all prisoners of conscience languishing in Algerian prisons.
The marchers, who marched along several streets of the city, also reiterated their total rejection of the legislative elections scheduled for June 12.
In recent weeks, just a few weeks before the legislative elections, Algeria has seen a resurgence in repression and arrests of protesters.
Last week, the police prevented students from demonstrating in Algiers, as they do every Tuesday, for the first time since the resumption of the popular movement’s marches at the end of February.
The ban on the demonstration came amid an intensification of repression against Hirak activists, political opponents and journalists, in the run-up to early legislative elections. Some 66 prisoners of conscience are currently incarcerated in Algeria for acts linked to the Hirak or individual freedoms, according to the specialist website “Algerian Detainees”.
This unprecedented wave of repression has been denounced by several Algerian and international organizations including the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH) which expressed its concern at “the escalation of repression targeting all voices of the opposition and the Hirak”.
The Hirak, the large-scale protest movement that ousted Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power after 20 years of unchallenged rule, resumed on February 22 after nearly a year of suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic that is raging in Algeria and around the world.
2024-09-19 21:45:16