A large number of Algerians demonstrated yesterday in the center of the capital on Friday, amid heavy security deployments, defying a "climate" of "increasing repression", NGOs said.
Before the big demonstration that began after Friday prayers, as in the case of the protest movement since February 22, small groups began to walk away from the main streets, shouting slogans against the elections scheduled for December 12.
Amid police observation, the demonstrators shouted, "O Qaid Saleh, not this year's elections," and "Take us all to jail, the people will not stop."
Police deployed heavily in the center of Algiers, but did not intervene, which for the first time since the start of the protest movement, the student march was blocked on Tuesday.
Two months before the elections in which a successor to Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced by the street to leave power after 20 years in office, is to be chosen, the rift between supporters and opponents seems irreparable.
While the army leadership, led by the country's strongman, General Qaid Saleh, sees elections as the only way out of the crisis, the Harak sees them as a way to keep the same regime that has ruled the country since independence from the French occupation in 1962.
On Thursday, Abdelwahab Fersaoui, president of the Youth Action Group, which had always been at the forefront of the popular movement, was arrested during a rally in support of political activists, students and journalists.