Many Algerians again demonstrated against power on Friday (October 11th), defying a climate of "growing repression" denounced by NGOs.
Before being joined by the flood of demonstrators, small groups were out on the street in Algiers even before the end of the weekly Muslim prayer, which marked as usual the kick-off of the demonstration of "Hirak" , this unprecedented protest movement born on 22 February in Algeria.
Deployed massively in the center of Algiers, like previous Fridays, the police, which prevented Tuesday for the first time since February students to demonstrate, did not intervene immediately.
Large groups of protesters have flocked from various neighborhoods to the center of the capital, according to online media and social networks, which also report significant processions in other cities across the country.
"Oh Gaïd Salah, no vote this year," chanted the protesters, denouncing again the presidential power that in the hands of the military high command embodied by the Chief of Staff of the army - General Ahmed Gaïd Salah -, intends to organize at any price on December 12th.
Two months before the election to elect a successor to Abdelaziz Bouteflika, which the street forced to leave power in April after 20 years in power, the positions of both sides are more than ever irreconcilable.
"Take us all to prison, the people will not back down"
General Gaïd Salah presents the election as the only way out of the crisis, while the protest sees it as a means of perpetuating the "system" in power since independence in 1962.
"We will not go home and we will not vote until the rules of the game are dictated by the same figures of Bouteflika's presidency," says Samira, 31.
A large banner carries the photos of the many activists, journalists, students or citizens apprehended in or on the sidelines of demonstrations and placed in pre-trial detention in recent months.
More than 80 people have been detained since June, according to the National Committee for the Release of Prisoners (CNLD), which calls for the release of "political and opinion prisoners".
"Take us all to jail, the people will not back down," shouted the protesters in chorus.
Freedoms "seriously threatened"
President of the Rassemblement action jeunesse (RAJ), a very active citizen association within "Hirak", Abdelouahab Fersaoui was arrested on Thursday at a rally to support the detainees.
"We have no other news from him" since a phone call Thursday afternoon during which he said he was in "a police station, but without specifying which," said Said Salhi, vice President of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH).
"The maximum period of custody (48 hours) expires Saturday and we will have more information.We all expect a warrant of committal" against him, he added.
He recalled that eight RAJ militants were already under suspicion on charges of attacking national unity, punishable by 10 years in prison, or incitement to assembly, punishable by one year in prison.
Amnesty International has denounced the "repressive climate that is unfolding in Algeria" with the "increase in the number of arbitrary arrests of activists, journalists, lawyers, students or ordinary citizens, in flagrant violation of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution".
Observatory for the protection of human rights defenders, freedom of expression and demonstration are "seriously threatened" in Algeria by the "growing repression" of "Hirak", marked by a "wave of arrests arbitrary ".
With AFP