Tag: Protesters

SANAA - Yemenis on Thursday commemorated dozens of people killed in weeks of street protests demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh resign, as efforts continued to negotiate his exit from power within the next year. Weeks of protests in Sanaa and elsewhere have brought Saleh's 32-year-old rule to the brink of collapse but the United States and Saudi Arabia, an important financial backer of its poverty-stricken neighbour, are worried over who might succeed their ally.
A senior

SANAA - Yemen's president has made a new offer to protesters demanding his ouster, proposing he stays in office until elections are held but transferring his powers to a caretaker government, an opposition source said on Wednesday.
Ali Abdullah Saleh made his offer at a meeting on Tuesday night with Mohammed al-Yadoumi, head of the Islamist Islah party. It was the first time Saleh had dealt with Islah, once a partner in his government, an opposition spokesmen said. "The

DAMASCUS - Syrian forces opened fire to disperse hundreds of protesters in Deraa calling for an end to emergency laws on Monday, but demonstrators regrouped despite a heavy troop deployment, a witness said. At least 61 people have been killed in 10 days of anti-government protests in the southern city, posing the most serious challenge to President Bashar al-Assad's rule. Assad has yet to respond to the demonstrations, which have spread to the port city of Latakia and Hama, but Vice

DAMASCUS - Syria freed 260 political detainees in the biggest overture yet to protesters demanding reform in the country, where President Bashar al-Assad is facing unprecedented domestic pressure. "Syrian authorities have freed 260 detainees from Saydnaya prison, mainly Islamists but also including 14 Kurds, in a move that comes as part of the promises authorities made recently to boost freedom in Syria," Abdul Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human

CAIRO - More than 2,000 people gathered across the Egyptian capital on Friday to demand more political reform, including a speedy trial of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, state news agency MENA said. One thousand protesters gathered in Tahrir square, epicentre of Egypt's uprising, chanting nationalist slogans and calling for Mubarak and other former government figures be tried for graft. They also called for the release of political prisoners. Tahrir square in central Cairo has become

DERAA - Hundreds of Syrian protesters, chanting for freedom, gathered on Saturday in the main square in the southern town of Deraa, scene of unrest for the last week, a witness said
The witness said three bare-chested young men climbed onto the rubble of the statue of late President Hafez al-Assad, which protesters pulled down yesterday, with cardboard signs reading "the people want the downfall of the regime".

PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD - Expressing anger and resentment over the desecration of holy Quran by US pastors Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp, various student organisations staged protest demonstrations against the act on Friday.
Condemning the incident, activists of Muslim Students Federation (MSF), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter, and Mukhtar Organisation, a Shia-backed group, gathered outside the cantonment railway station to register their protest. The rallies were led by KP MSF senior vice

DAMASCUS/DERAA - Syrian security men seized dozens of people who staged a brief pro-democracy march in Damascus on Friday, as protests that have flared in the south inspired support in the capital.
But a day after President Bashar al-Assad, scion of half a century of Baathist rule, offered to consider granting political freedoms, thousands marched freely in the southern city of Deraa behind the coffins of protesters gunned down by Assad's forces.
"Freedom is ringing out!"

AMMAN - Jordanian students on Friday vowed to press on with their pro-reform sit-in protest, undeterred by stone attacks blamed on government supporters, as thousands expressed allegiance to King Abdullah II.
"They are trying to push us to leave," Saddam Basrawi, a 21-year-old university student, told AFP."Last night, they attacked us with stones, but we will endure and we will not budge no matter what happens."Around 500 youths from different movements, including the powerful

DERAA - The main hospital in the southern Syrian city of Deraa has received the bodies of at least 37 protesters who were killed in a confrontation with security forces, a hospital official said.
Security forces opened fire on hundreds of youths at the northern entrance to Deraa, according to witnesses, in a dramatic escalation of nearly a week of protests in which at least 44 civilians have been killed since Friday.
Around 20,000 people marched on Thursday in the funerals

DAMASCUS/SANAA - Syrian forces killed at least 16 people on Wednesday, including six in an attack on a mosque in the southern city of Deraa, site of unprecedented protests challenging President Bashar al-Assad's Baathist rule, residents said.
Assad, a close ally of Iran, key player in neighbouring Lebanon and supporter of militant groups opposed to Israel, has dismissed rising demands for fundamental reforms in Syria where his Baath Party has held a monopoly on power for 48

MUSCAT - About 100 Omani demonstrators set up tents on Tuesday in a district of the capital housing the main government ministries, demanding political reform. Protests against autocratic rulers sweeping the region have not spared conservative and usually tranquil Oman at the southeast end of the Arabian Peninsula whose Gulf Arab dynasty has long been backed by Washington. In power for 40 years, Sultan Qaboos this month began moves to cede some legislative powers to the partially

MBABANE - Thousands of Swazis marched on the prime minister's office on Friday in a rare protest to demand the resignation of the tiny southern African kingdom's government. Swaziland is in the grip of a serious financial crisis and civil servants fear they will not be paid this month after Africa's last absolute monarchy suffered a huge drop in income from the Southern African Customs Union. Protesters have drawn inspiration from uprisings in north Africa. Trade unions and opposition

MANAMA - Bahraini forces backed by helicopters launched a crackdown on protesters Wednesday, imposing a curfew and clearing hundreds from a camp that had become the symbol of an uprising by the Shia majority.
Hospital sources said three policemen and at least two protesters were killed in the assault that began a day after Bahrain declared martial law to quell sectarian unrest that has sucked in troops from fellow Sunni-ruled neighbour Saudi Arabia. A defiant youth movement,

MANAMA - Protesters blocked off a main thoroughfare to the Bahrain Financial Harbour, a key business district in the Gulf Arab banking centre, overwhelming riot police who fired thick clouds of tear gas and water cannon.
Thousands of youths ran across the King Faisal Highway as police backed away in the face of hundreds of protesters who had gathered near the Pearl roundabout, the focal point of weeks of demonstrations on the small Gulf island. The government said in a statement

KUWAIT - Kuwaitis demonstrating outside parliament for the prime minister's ouster came up with a new symbol of Arab discontent on Tuesday by handing out watermelons.
"This is for the parliament's poor performance," one of the small band of protesters shouted as he gave a watermelon to a lawmaker making his way into the parliament. The significance was not spelled out, but in local parlance, a person who has a lack of understanding or holds an unrealistic point of view sometimes

GAZA CITY - Hamas police on Monday detained at least six protesters at a Gaza City demonstration calling for unity between the Islamist group and its bitter West Bank rival Fatah. The arrests came a day after Hamas police held five demonstrators from the unity movement as they marched past Gaza City's Shifa hospital on their way to rally in front of the legislative building. A media coordinator for the unity movement in Gaza told AFP that the six people held on Monday were detained at