Algeria police on guard after riots

Security forces reinforced and football matches cancelled following fresh unrest on Thursday night. Last Modified: 07 Jan 2011 13:18 GMT

Top-level football matches scheduled in Algeria on Friday and Saturday have been scrapped in wake of the riots [EPA] Police have been deployed outside mosques and a university in the Algerian capital after fresh rioting erupted overnight following days of protests over rising prices and unemployment. About 40 youths armed with swords attacked several shops in the El Biar area of Algiers late on Thursday, looting a restaurant and emptying a jewellery store before security forces arrived, local reporters and witnesses said. Rioting rocks Algerian capital There was a second night of clashes in the volatile Bab el Oued suburb, with police firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators, a witness said. One witness said youths had hurled Molotov cocktails and another said they carried swords. Police were positioned around mosques in Bab el Oued, Belcourt and Bachjarrah, poorer areas of the city, in case of more unrest after Friday prayers, according to reporters at the scene. There was also extra security at a police station, a new shopping mall and a major hotel in an area near Bab Ezzouar airport, while a nearby university was surrounded by security forces. Social trauma Salima Ghezali, a leading Algerian journalist and human rights activist, told Al Jazeera in a phone interview that the outbreak of protests is "both very local and very global". Algerians have followed protests over economic dissatisfaction not only in neighbouring Tunisia, but also in Europe. At the same time, she said the rioting is a consequence of years of economic and political mismanagement. Although hardly a week goes by without geographically-specific protests over particular incidents, she said that the nationwide movement that has sprung up this week is very different. "This is affecting a large part of the Algerian territory," she said. Asked if this week's rioting is comparable to the October 1988 demonstrations that forced the government to grant wider media freedom and hold the country's first democratic elections (which were subsequently halted by the military), she said the current political situation is far grimmer. "Unlike in 1988, the country today is deeply traumatised," she said, refering to the "dirty war" of the 1990s that left 200,000 people dead and an estimated 20,000 forcibly disappeared. There has never been any investigations into the alleged war crimes committed by all sides during this civil war. Despite coming in the context of monoparty rule by the FLN, the 1988 uprising found political leadership in both the "Islamist" and the left-wing opposition movements, Ghezali told Al Jazeera. Algeria is now a democracy, but the FLN remains in power. Opposition parties argue there is little space for them to participate in the political sphere. Those movements have been severely weakened over the past two decades and have been "targeted by repression". She said that the government led by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, meanwhile, is ignoring the social and economic woes endured by most Algerians. "We are heading towards a social disaster," she said. "They don't seem to realise this." "I hope with all my heart that I am wrong." Football matches scrapped All top-level football matches scheduled in Algeria on Friday and Saturday have been scrapped, the national football league has announced. Travellers said a road between the capital and eastern suburbs on the coast had been blocked since Thursday afternoon after youths set up barricades, also clashing with security forces. Authorities cleaned up the debris on Friday after the overnight unrest in Algiers, removing damaged cars at dawn, a journalist for the AFP news agency said. In the Annacer-Diar el Afia suburb, a Renault-Dacia car dealership showed signs of fire and residents said a public bus was also torched, although only burn marks on the road were visible by morning. "Why are they doing this?" an elderly woman said. "Yesterday I cried at home. Young people have a reason but they shouldn't be reacting like this," she said. Unemployment anger Protests led by small groups of young men have flared in several towns this week, linked to anger about a spike in the costs of basic food items by about 30 per cent this month, unemployment and a lack of social housing. Similar protests have rattled neighbouring Tunisia since mid-December. The Algerian daily El-Watan newspaper reported that several people had been wounded in the Algerian clashes, but the official media has made no comment and authorities have only assured that they are tackling the spike in costs. Commerce Minister Mustapha Benbada said after meeting with producers and importers of cooking oil and sugar - which have seen the steepest price hikes - that his ministry "is beginning to control the crisis" and it would be resolved by next week, national radio reported Thursday. About 75 per cent of Algerians are under the age of 30, and 20 percent of the youth are unemployed, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies