ADEN – Police fired tear gas and live ammunition on Thursday to break up an anti-government protest in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, leaving two people injured, witnesses said. The police, who deployed in large numbers earlier in the morning, were seen by an AFP correspondent dispersing the protesters as they began to march in the Crater district of the city.
The demonstration – part of a “day of rage” in Yemen – had been called by Common Forum, an opposition coalition, against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Hundreds of protesters gathered, some of them with banners with slogans such as “the corrupt and the tyrants must go” and “the time for change has come.”
In another part of Aden, police arrested 30 people as they tried to stage a protest held every Thursday to demand the release of prisoners, officials of the pro-independence Southern Movement said. Thousands of people also demonstrated in various southern towns, some responding to a call from the Southern Movement and others to an appeal from the Common Forum, witnesses said.
