{"id":32960,"date":"2019-02-23T13:52:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-23T13:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32960"},"modified":"2019-02-23T13:52:54","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T13:52:54","slug":"algeria-dozens-arrested-in-protests-against-bouteflika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32960","title":{"rendered":"Algeria: Dozens arrested in protests against Bouteflika"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"91.7220052083\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">Security forces arrested 41 people during angry protests that rocked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/algeria.html\">Algeria<\/a>&#8216;s capital against ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika seeking a fifth term, authorities said on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Police fired tear gas on Friday afternoon to block a protest march on the presidential palace, prompting demonstrators to throw stones in response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The Directorate General for National Security said on Saturday it had detained 41 people over &#8220;public disorder, vandalism, damage to property, violence and assault&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the arrests, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/subjects\/protests.html\">protests<\/a> around the country were largely tolerated by authorities, even in the capital, where demonstrations have been strictly banned since 2001.<\/p>\n<p>The police did not give an estimate of the number of protesters, but a security official speaking on condition of anonymity told the AFP news agency that around 20,000 people had demonstrated nationwide, around a quarter of them in Algiers.<\/p>\n<p>The official said 38 of the arrests were in the capital, and that no security personnel had been wounded.<\/p>\n<p>Activists had used social media to call for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2019\/02\/algerians-protest-bouteflika-bid-term-190222151225077.html\">nationwide protests against Bouteflika<\/a> on Friday after weekly Muslim prayers.<\/p>\n<p>The 81-year-old, who uses a wheelchair and has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, announced on February 10 that he will run for another term in April&#8217;s presidential election.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"imagecontainer item\" data-image-url=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/mritems\/Images\/2019\/2\/23\/b4bf78f397754e4cbdaee730286585c4_18.jpg\">\n<table class=\"image\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody readability=\"1.5\">\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/mritems\/Images\/2019\/2\/23\/b4bf78f397754e4cbdaee730286585c4_18.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr readability=\"3\">\n<td class=\"caption\">Police used tear gas to disperse crowds as people march to protest against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika&#8217;s plan to seek a fifth term in Algiers on February 22 [Ramzi Boudina\/Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Security forces arrested 41 people during angry protests that rocked Algeria&#8217;s capital against ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika seeking a fifth term, authorities said on Saturday. Police fired tear gas on Friday afternoon to block a protest march on the presidential palace, prompting demonstrators to throw stones in response. The Directorate General for National Security said&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}