Algeria:Anti-riot police harshly quell protest by peaceful job seekers

Algerian anti-riot forces harshly quelled on Sunday a peaceful protest march in the vicinity of the Government’s Palace premises in central Algiers by using baton charges to disperse the crowd of jobless citizens demanding pre-employment contracts.

Reports say that at least 45 protesters were rounded up including the coordinator of the National Jobless Youth Committee, Mohamed Boulassina, and many others were brutally roughed up by the surging police forces.

Several people, badly injured in the tough police intervention, were rushed to hospital for first-aid medical care.

A representative of this national committee for the defense of the rights of unemployed youth, Lahbib Ahmed, firmly hit out against the police forces’ brutality used to break up a peaceful demonstration by jobless citizens whose only fault, he said, is to press for their legitimate right to secure a permanent job.

Most of these hapless job-seekers are university degree holders or national Institute laureates but their claims have so far been blatantly ignored by the relevant authorities, he stressed.

For his part, Mohamed Boulassina told Echorouk after being released from police custody following his arrest during Sunday’s protest march, that President Bouteflika should take over this burning file himself and take swift remedial measures in order to prevent this already bleak situation from taking a turn for the worse.