By RFIPosted on 17-01-2020Modified on 17-01-2020 at 22:29

For the 48th week in a row, thousands of people took to the streets of Algiers and other cities across the country on Friday, January 17, to demand a “regime change”, at a time when the future of the popular protest movement , Hirak, is debated in society.

While the debate has been fierce all week in the country, after a column by the writer Kamel Daoud who estimated that the protest movement had failed, demonstrations took place in more than 25 of the country's 48 regions on Friday. In the capital, mobilization was on the decline, but the demonstrators refused to speak of failure.

In the procession this Friday, a young woman holds at arm's length a white sign where it is written that if the movement is structured, it is her death. Amine, a thirty-something who has been demonstrating regularly for 11 months , believes that the criticism is unfair and that the movement is doing its best.

“ Every Friday, we always see the same faces, it's true, but they are faces that have appropriated the street. They engage with their own weapon, which is peaceful protest. We have no other way to change this system, other than that. We must not forget that Hirak is not a political party. It is a new counterweight. "

Many demonstrators refuse to dialogue with the authorities and first ask for the release of the imprisoned demonstrators . This is the case of Hakim Addad, member of the RAJ association, on provisional release after three months of detention.

" What appeasement when every Friday there are dozens of arrests ?" We were released. First, of course, we should never have been arrested, but above all, Algerian prisons should have been empty of any prisoner or prisoner of conscience taken in peaceful demonstrations. Appeasement is not 'I reach out to you' but 'I slap you with the other , ”he says.

In the crowd, a group of families walks behind a banner. They denounce the continued pretrial detention, without trial, of their children since last March.

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