{"id":33892,"date":"2019-03-03T06:22:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T06:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33892"},"modified":"2019-03-03T06:22:35","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T06:22:35","slug":"son-of-former-algeria-pm-dies-during-anti-bouteflika-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33892","title":{"rendered":"Son of former Algeria PM dies during anti-Bouteflika protests"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The son of Algeria<\/a>‘s\u00a0first prime minister has died while taking part in a protest against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term in office, a government official and a family member said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Interior Minister Noureddine Bedoui identified the man as Hassan Benkhedda, a son of the late Benyoucef Benkhedda, who took power after the country gained independence from France in 1962.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The forensic medical investigations will clarify causes and circumstances of his death,” the minister said in a tweet.<\/p>\n

Benkhedda, believed to be in his 50s, was killed in a clash between police and “thugs unrelated to the protesters,” the minister said in a separate statement online.<\/p>\n

Family members, however, dispute that explanation.<\/p>\n

In a Facebook post, Salim Benkhedda said that his brother Hassan had participated in the mass protests<\/a> near the presidential palace in central Algiers on Friday and blamed what he called the “ruling gang and its thugs” for the death.<\/p>\n

The death is the first to happen in protests that erupted more than a week ago against Bouteflika’s plan to run in next month’s presidential election.<\/p>\n

Many Algerians believe Bouteflika is unfit to hold the presidency. The 81-year-old suffered a stroke in 2013 and is rarely seen in public.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, his campaign manager said this week that Bouteflika would submit his candidacy documents for the April 18 election on Sunday, the final day for registration.<\/p>\n

On Friday, tens of thousands of Algerians took to the streets in several parts of the country against Bouteflika’s re-election plan.<\/p>\n

Some 56 policemen were injured during the protests and around 45 protesters were arrested, according to a security agency.<\/p>\n

In a statement carried by the Algerian state television, the security general directorate said<\/span> that seven people were also injured.<\/p>\n

Algerian authorities have said they will be making a major announcement concerning the protests on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The son of Algeria’s\u00a0first prime minister has died while taking part in a protest against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term in office, a government official and a family member said on Saturday. Interior Minister Noureddine Bedoui identified the man as Hassan Benkhedda, a son of the late Benyoucef Benkhedda, who took power…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33892","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\/33892","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=33892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}