Thousands of auxiliary police marched in Algiers on Monday to demand pay raises, breaking through heavy security to reach parliament in a rare mass show of dissent in the tightly controlled country.
The policemen, estimated by organizers to number around 20,000 and by reporters to be 10,000, braved a ban on demonstrations in the Algerian capital and pushed through several security cordons to reach the National Assembly.
They were quickly surrounded by regular police dispatched to the scene of the protest.
The men, many of them in uniform, demanded Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika bring their salaries and conditions in line with those of other security services, retroactive to 2008, chanting: “Bouteflika is the solution.”
The protesters dispersed peacefully after agreeing to the establishment of a commission that would look into the corps’ demands, a negotiator said after talks with Algerian Interior Minister Dahou Ould Kablia.
The commission will comprise three representatives of the auxiliary police, one from the interior ministry and one each from the police and gendarmerie, he said.
Algeria’s auxiliary police, numbering about 94,000 men, operate in the country’s villages as part of a program set up in 1994 when the government was battling Islamist rebel groups.
“We only have the right to 21 days of leave a year. We take part in security sweeps without helmets or bullet-proof jackets,” one protester said.
According to the demonstrators, about 4,400 auxiliary policemen have been killed since 1994 in violence involving armed Islamists.
Emboldened by popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world, Algeria’s opposition has attempted to stage several anti-Bouteflika protests in the capital, in defiance of the ban on demonstrating in the city, but have been thwarted.
On Saturday the latest attempt to protest against Bouteflika, who has been in power since 1999, was foiled when police surrounded protesters and counter-demonstrators chanted “Bouteflika is not Mubarak.”
In a bid to appease simmering public anger, Bouteflika, 73, promised last month to place the fight against corruption at the heart of government action.
Bouteflika also promised a raft of reforms meant to boost the economy, employment and housing.
He also lifted martial law for the first time in 19 years.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS