Monday, February 14, 2011

Algeria 'to lift emergency laws'


Foreign minister says 19-year-old emergency will end "within days" amid calls for more protests against government.

Al-Jazeera

"The Algerian government has said it will end its 19-year-old state of emergency "within days". Mourad Medelci, the foreign minister, made the announcement on Monday, echoing a similar promise made by Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the president, earlier this month.

"In the coming days, we will talk about it as if it was a thing of the past," Medelci told French rmedia.

A state of emergency has been in place in Algeria since 1992 and the government has come under pressure to remove the laws following popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

The decision also comes after demonstrations across the country, calling for a change of government......

Weekly protests

Opposition groups have also announced they will follow up the protests held this weekend by calling a demonstration in Algiers, the capital, every Saturday.

"We will continue to march until the regime steps down. Each Saturday we will maintain the pressure," Mohsen Belabes, a spokesman for the RCD opposition party which helped organised the demonstrations, said.

Elias Filali, an Algerian blogger and activist, quoted Ali Yahia Abdennour, a senior figure and human right activist, as saying: "We should continue protesting every Saturday in the same square, we will gather momentum as we progress we want our dignity back.

"Yesterday the police has brutally beaten many protesters amongst them a pregnant women, old ladies, a journalist, young men and women, we should carry on protesting until we get our rights."....."

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