Roadblocks, helicopters in flight … Algiers has been squared by the police since Monday morning after calls for demonstrations launched on the web, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the popular uprising of Hirak.
Police checkpoints have been set up on several roads leading to the capital, according to various testimonies collected by AFP. Above the city, the sound of helicopters can be heard as a fine rain washes the streets of yesterday’s sandy wind. Shortly after 1 p.m., thousands of people were already registered in the street.
“I must have started at five in the morning”
To avoid delays related to traffic jams, some Algerians went out at dawn to go to work. “I came from Hamadi (east of Algiers). I must have started at five in the morning, said Hamid, a 54-year-old civil servant. Two and a half hours of traffic jam to arrive in the center because of the roadblocks of the gendarmerie and then the police. They check every car. “
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Launched on February 22, 2019, the Hirak, an unprecedented popular protest movement in Algeria, had pushed President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in power for two decades, to resign two months later. This peaceful movement had to suspend its weekly demonstrations in March due to the coronavirus epidemic, but it continues to demand the dismantling of the “system” in place since independence in 1962, synonymous in its eyes with authoritarianism and corruption. .
Original article by : www.leparisien.fr
