Algeria anti-government protesters hit streets after year-long hiatus

ALGIERS: Thousands of antigovernment protesters took to the streets across Algeria on Friday, as the ‘Hirak’ prodemocracy movement gathers renewed momentum after a year-long hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite a ban on gatherings over Covid-19, crowds rallied in several neighbourhoods of the capital Algiers in the early afternoon after Friday prayers and marched toward the city centre.

“It’s awesome. It’s like the big Friday Hirak protests,” one demonstrator said.

The Hirak protests were sparked in February 2019 over president Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term, and the long-time leader was forced from power in April that year.

Demonstrators kept up weekly protests after Bouteflika’s resignation, demanding a sweeping overhaul of a ruling system in place since Algeria’s independence from France in 1962.

They only suspended protests last March due to coronavirus restrictions, but calls have recently circulated on social media for a return to the streets.

On Thursday, rallying cries online also included calls for everyone to wear masks at the protest, after many had not at a Monday demonstration to mark the second anniversary of the Hirak protests that also drew thousands. Many people still went unmasked on Friday.

Protesters were met by security forces who used truncheons and fired tear gas when a crowd forced its way through a police barrier to reach the Grand Post Office, the main Algiers rallying point of the Hirak protests, footage posted on the Interligne news site showed.

From the morning, police vans had taken up positions near main squares in the city centre and roadblocks were set up on several major roads leading into the capital.

As if no time had passed since the last Friday demonstration in 2020, the crowds were full of the same flags and slogans.

Cries rang out of “The people want the fall of the regime”, “Free and democratic Algeria” and “Civil state, not military state” – referring to the military establishment that holds sway over Algerian politics.

“We will not go backwards,” called out a group of women on the margins of the march in Algiers, before the demonstrations broke up calmly in the late afternoon.