The marches of the pro-democracy movement of Hirak in Algeria were marked on Friday March 26 by dozens of arrests across the country, according to human rights organizations.
Read also: Algeria: these sympathizers who tire of a Hirak with no political outlet
The Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH) reported "
dozens of arrests in several wilayas (prefectures) in Algiers, Blida, Tiaret and Relizane
".
Most of those arrested were released at the end of the day, she said.
"
The LADDH, while expressing its full solidarity with the Hirak movement, denounces this repression and reiterates its call for an end to the repression and demonization of Hirak, and recalls respect for public freedoms and human rights
", said the vice-president of the League, Saïd Salhi.
In Algiers, the Iraqi activist Mohamed Tadjadit, a former detainee, and three students were arrested at the end of the weekly demonstration which gathered thousands of people in the center of the capital, said the National Committee for the release of detainees. (CNLD), an association supporting prisoners of conscience.
"
The activist and poet Mohamed Tajadit arrested at the end of the demonstration (...) in the rue Didouche Mourad in Algiers-center, and boarded a white Toyota, no news of him
", tweeted the independent journalist Khaled Drareni.
Read also: Algeria: the Hirak in the street after the announcement of early elections
In addition, the police dispersed, using liquid gas spray, the demonstrators in Oran (north-west) as well as in the neighboring town of Mostaganem from the start of the parade, told AFP a local journalist on condition of anonymity.
Marches also took place in Tizi Ouzou, Bouira and Béjaïa, cities of Kabylie (north-east), as well as in Constantine and Annaba (east), according to images posted on social networks.
Gatherings are in principle prohibited due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Slogans hostile to power and the army
As every Friday since the resumption of Hirak on February 22, the protesters - whose number is difficult to assess in the absence of official figures - launched slogans hostile to the power and the army, the pillar of the regime.
They criticized President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's decision to hold early parliamentary elections on June 12 in an attempt to respond to the serious political and socio-economic crisis that is shaking the most populous country in the Maghreb.
"
No elections with the Band (in power),
" chanted the procession in the streets of Algiers.
"
Algeria is the only country in the world to want to organize elections without people,
" lamented a protester, Aziz Boucheban.
Faced with the popular protest that persists, despite divisions, the regime appears determined to apply its "
road map
", namely the use of a third ballot since the end of 2019, by remaining deaf to the aspirations of the Hirak and alternating gestures of appeasement and repression.
The presidential election of December 2019 and the constitutional referendum of November 2020 were sanctioned by record abstention rates.
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