Jobless youth protest south of Algeria

Ouergla (South of Algeria) – A number of Jobless youth protest here on Monday out of the town’s Court asking government to hire them within foreign and Algerian oil companies in Hassi Messaoud oil city.

Hundreds of oil companies operating since a quarter of century southern Algeria become unable to hire the huge number of jobless youth which is growing every year, including new university graduates and engineers without jobs.

Protesters demanded speedy justice chapter in the case of the accused “Ziwan” and “Aldjia” held in police custody after trying to suicide out of a police station.

Protests organized by dozens of activists from the National Committee for Defending Rights of Jobless Youth were peaceful but have embarrassed the judges during the trial because protesters were near the court where security services intervened to cordon the court’s building and others adjacent to it, and imposed a tight security control out of the headquarters of the Regional Agency for Employment, where some jobless youth tried to commit suicide an earlier time.

Dozens of jobless lift various slogans condemning harassment and exclusion, asking for jobs as a constitutional right which classifies them as job seekers and not as criminals according to some believes, asserting that President Bouteflika’s decisions on the creation of job opportunities for youth have not been realized in their city Ouergla until now, while others are hired through favoritism.

On the other hand, the capital of black gold “oil” Hassi Messaoud (South of Algeria) noticed various protests by angry jobless who closed doors of a governmental building and raided houses asking government to end the freeze on the city since 2004, forcing over 700 oil companies to stop abuses concerning employment through adopting a direct hiring without resorting to the office of municipal employment.