Renewed popular movement rallies in Algeria on Friday 26 in the capital and several cities, demanding the departure of the remnants of the regime of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and reject any dialogue or elections with what they called "gangs."
Thousands of people marched in Algiers on Friday after Friday prayers, which started from the 1st of May Square.
Several other cities also witnessed mass demonstrations, including Oran, Bejaia, Mostaganem, Batna, Constantine, Tizi Ouzou.
A civilian state, not a military one
The demonstrators chanted slogans rejecting any dialogue or elections in light of the remaining remnants of the symbols of the Bouteflika regime, such as "a civilian state, not a military" and "no dialogue and no elections with gangs", while others chanted for a genuine and serious dialogue.
| Protesters chanted slogans against any dialogue or elections as the remnants of Bouteflika's regime continue. |
The marchers demanded the departure of interim President Abdelkader Bensalah, Prime Minister Noureddine Badawi and members of his government.
Demonstrators also promised larger and larger marches by September, after the summer break and the return of staff to work, as well as pupils to schools and students to universities.
Tight control
An extensive deployment of Algerian police officers and vehicles was observed in the main squares and streets of the capital, without incident or clashes with demonstrators.
As usual, Algerian security forces tightly controlled the entrances to the eastern, western and southern capitals, through checkpoints of national gendarmes and police, resulting in traffic jams.
In a related context, the newspaper "Wall Street Journal" accusations of technicians working for the "Huawei" Chinese to help the governments of African countries, including Algeria in spying on political opponents.
However, the Huawei branch in Algeria issued a statement today denying the newspaper's claims and considered that it is baseless, stressing that the rules of business conduct in Huawei prohibit any activity that would "endanger the privacy of their customers," as they described.
Algeria has been living since February 22, following popular rallies that prompted Bouteflika to step down in early April. The most prominent faces of his regime, like former prime ministers Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal, have been jailed for corruption.
A few days ago, the dialogue and mediation team announced by the Algerian presidency started rounds of dialogue with the activities of the popular movement in the framework of efforts to get out of the crisis and move towards the organization of presidential elections, supervised and organized and monitored by an independent commission.