Protests spread to Algeria, Ye

Amazigh Kateb, an Algerian singer and musician, participates with around 2,000 other people in a demonstration Saturday in Algiers. Photo: AFP
Anti-government sentiment continued to spread in Algeria and Yemen over the weekend in the wake of protests that had forced out leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.
In Algeria, up to 2,000 demonstrators evaded massed police to rally in a central Algiers square, calling for the departure of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Ringed by hundreds of riot police, some of whom carried automatic weapons in addition to clubs and shields, they waved a large banner reading "Regime, out" and chanted slogans borrowed from the mass protests in Tunis and Cairo.
However, police were deployed in their tens of thousands to prevent a planned four-kilometer march from May 1 Square to Martyrs Square.
The demonstrators included both the head of the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), Said Sadi, and his one-time enemy, Ali Belhadj, the former leader of the now-banned Islamist Salvation Front.

A knot of police surrounded Sadi to prevent him from using a loudspeaker to address the crowd, while a number of arrests were made.
Fodil Boumala, one of the founders of the National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD), which called the march, was jubilant. "We've broken the wall of fear; this is only a beginning," he said. "The Algerians have won back their capital."
The interior ministry said 14 people had been held but then released. However, the head of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH), Mustapha Bouchachi, said there had been 300 arrests in Algiers, the western city of Oran and the eastern city of Annaba.
Meanwhile, several thousand young Yemenis gathered in central Sana'a on Saturday to protest against long-term President Ali Abdallah Saleh. "After Mubarak, it's Ali's turn," chanted some of the estimated 4,000 protesters, mostly young students.
The protesters then headed off toward Sana'a University, with some crying, "Get out, Get out Ali," and "The people want the regime to fall."

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The protest began after an exchange between a group of students trying to put up an anti-regime poster and supporters of the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) who tried to stop them, according to witnesses.
Many of the GPC members wielded clubs and knives, determined to keep the protesters off the square where many tents have been erected to hinder any takeover.
Neither side appeared keen to clash, and the sheer number of ruling party supporters, who included at least two from the Yemeni politburo, Aref al-Zouka and Sanaa Mayor Abderrahman al-Akwa, saw the young students begin to disperse peacefully.
Several hundred protesters tried unsuccessfully to approach the Egyptian embassy, which was protected by a large police force, while others gathered in Al-Tahrir Square.
AFP
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