Algeria: steps prohibited, the Hirak takes refuge on social networks

Their marches prohibited by the authorities, the militants of the protest movement of Hirak in Algeria took refuge on social networks on Friday to demonstrate their rejection of the legislative elections organized in a week.

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“This Friday, June 4, we will be millions of Algerians all over the world, to be there all day: everyone on Facebook and on Twitter, Instagram or elsewhere, we will stand in solidarity with the detainees. 'opinion, those forgotten from the electoral campaign and the new Algeria

,

tweeted Saïd Salhi, vice-president of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH).

This

Hirak

, that is the number of weeks passed since the start of the popular anti-system uprising born in February 2019, was dedicated to the 214 prisoners of conscience currently incarcerated in Algerian jails according to the National Committee for the Liberation of prisoners (CNLD), a support association.

Boycotted ballot

“These people are not criminals. They are ordinary citizens who have exercised a right guaranteed by the Constitution: to express their opinion. There are those who were arrested during popular marches and there are those who were arrested because of Facebook posts, ”

activist Zaki Hannache told the independent site Interlignes. In deserted Algiers, the weekly Hirak march could not take place, according to an AFP journalist. Police had blocked the main thoroughfares in the city center, preventing any gathering, especially of worshipers leaving mosques after Friday prayers. Only a few dozen people were able to gather in the district of Diar al Jamaa, in the east of the capital, before being dispersed by the police, according to a witness.

"The escalation of repression continues to target the peaceful pro-democracy Hirak and all the voices of the opposition in Algeria",

denounced Saïd Salhi. On the other hand, thousands of people marched in several provincial towns, notably in Tizi Ouzou, in Kabylia (north-east), in solidarity with the prisoners of conscience and against the June 12 poll, according to local media and Internet users.

chanted the Hirakist processions in Bejaïa and Bouira, also in Kabylia.

One week before the election, supposed to bring new legitimacy to the regime but boycotted by part of the opposition, the electoral campaign is taking place in a climate of repression. The power, whose pillar is the army, has de facto banned Hirak demonstrations and is increasing the arrests and legal proceedings against political opponents, Iraqi militants, lawyers and journalists. He now denies any legitimacy to this unprecedented and peaceful movement, without real leadership, which he accuses of being instrumentalized by "foreign parties" hostile to Algeria.