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Friday Protests Grip Middle East

By Al Jazeera

25 February, 2011
Al Jazeera

Opposing political camps rally in Yemeni cities while protesters vent anger after prayers in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq

Tens of thousands of people have gathered in a main square in the Yemeni capital for prayers that are expected to be followed by mass protests to press demands for Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's longtime president, to step down.

Yemeni authorities stepped up security in Sanaa on Friday in anticipation of rival rallies between government supporters and opponents, which the interior ministry said could be exploited by "terrorist elements".

Witnesses said police in Sanaa formed cordons round the rival groups of protesters and supporters - whose numbers were expected to swell after Friday prayers - to prevent either side from confronting the other.

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Sanaa, said: "Hundreds of thousands of government loyalists and pro-democracy activists have converged on main squares of Sanaa, Taez, Hadramawt, Ibb, Saada and Hodeidah."

"An impressive surge in rallies in the country," he said.

Yemen has been swept up in protests inspired by the recent successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. The demonstrators are demanding that Saleh, in power for 32 years, step down.

'Anarchy and killing'

Saleh said on Wednesday he had ordered his security services to protect protesters, stop all clashes and prevent direct confrontation between government supporters and opponents.

Seventeen people have died in the past nine days in a sustained wave of nationwide anti-Saleh protests galvanised by the fall of the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents. Saleh has said he will not give in to "anarchy and killing".

An interior ministry statement late on Thursday ordered security forces to "raise their security vigilance and take all measures to control any terrorist elements" who might take advantage of the protests to infiltrate Sanaa.

Saleh, a US ally against a Yemen-based al Qaeda wing that has launched attacks at home and abroad, is struggling to end month-old protests flaring across his impoverished country.

He is also trying to maintain a shaky truce with northern Shia Muslim fighters and contain a secessionist uprising in the south against northern rule.

State news agency Saba said Saleh has also assigned a committee headed by Ali Mohammed Megawar, the prime minister, to open a dialogue with protesters to hear their demands.

The fresh instability and anti-government protests spreading through the region are threatening to ensnare Egypt and Jordan.

Egypt's new military rulers, promising to guard against "counter-revolution", faced political pressure on Friday to purge the cabinet of ministers appointed by Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president, as thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo.

On the eve of the rally that will also celebrate two weeks since Mubarak's removal, the military, which has promised elections within six months, assured Egyptians there would be "no return to the past" of the Mubarak era.

At a gathering at Tahrir Square, which was also to remind the military of the people power that ended Mubarak's 30-year rule, activists urged the military to overhaul the newly appointed cabinet and install a fresh team of technocrats.

"Friday is another day of protest to bring together Egyptians who bravely ousted Mubarak but still struggle as remnants of the old regime try to hang on and ruin the revolution," Sameha Metwali, an activist, said.

Day of anger

On Friday, Jordan deployed more than 3,000 security personnel across central Amman, braced for a planned "day of anger" by a powerful opposition movement and other parties.

"More than 3,000 members of different security services were in the business district in anticipation of the march," a senior security official said.

The Islamic Action Front (IAF) expected around 10,000 of its members as well as supporters of 19 political parties to march in call for reforms, in what they hoped would be the largest protest since January.

In the run-up to Friday's rally, dozens of supporters of the Hashemite royal family gathered outside Al-Husseini Mosque, in the heart of Amman.

Anti-government demonstrations in Jordan erupted last month to protest against the rising cost of living, and demand economic and political reforms.

Meanwhile on Friday, hundreds of Iraqis converged on Baghdad's Liberation Square as part of an anti-government rally named the Day of Rage, organised mainly through the social networking website Facebook.

About 2,000 protesters are said to have already gathered, which comes after weeks of scattered protests around the country calling for an end to corruption, shortages of jobs, food, power and water.

 


 




 


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