The police forces were heavily mobilised to categorically prevent the holding of this student march which attracted hundreds of peaceful demonstrators every Tuesday in Algiers brandishing slogans hostile to the government in place.
Students, peaceful activists, journalists and ordinary citizens were violently arrested and taken manu militari to several police stations spread across the wilaya of Algiers including Kouba, Baraki, El-Harrach, Dar El-Beida, Zéralda and Ain Benian.
According to local media, which cite journalists and eyewitnesses who were violently prevented from filming the arrests and the forceful intervention of the police, this radical attitude demonstrates a “clear desire to lock down public space to Hirak activists.”
The muscular interventions of this Tuesday foreshadow an unprecedented repressive system during the next popular Hirak demonstrations planned for next Friday, estimate the same sources, who warn that the climate risks being very tense because the marches of Friday are much more imposing and powerful than the protest actions organized by the students each Tuesday.
The Algerian regime is therefore attempting a brutal and radical turn of the screw to regain control of the streets on the eve of the electoral meeting of June 12, which is more than ever threatened by the significant scale of the popular protest, explain these media.
The Algerian League for Human Rights (LADDH) spoke out against police repression and condemned a “new authoritarian drift”, with the arrests of minors, teachers and ordinary citizens.
Among the twenty people arrested, a dozen were released at the end of the day, including the academic and political scientist Louisa Dris-Aït Hamadouche, said the National Committee for the Liberation of Prisoners (CNLD), an association which helps prisoners of conscience.
According to the specialist website “Algerian Detainees”, 66 prisoners of conscience are currently incarcerated, prosecuted in connection with the Hirak and/or individual freedoms.
Students have been demonstrating every Tuesday since February 2019 in addition to the popular Hirak marches which take place every Friday, except during the break observed due to the Covid-19 pandemic between April 2020 and February 2021.
2024-09-21 02:11:25