Saturday, February 26, 2011

Political protests in Yemen leaves one dead

.- At least one person was killed today in Yemen and another 17 injured when a protest police repression in the south, as part of new events that occurred in different cities and against the regime of president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Medical sources and witnesses told Efe that the victims were in the port city of Aden, where police used firearms and other riot to quell opposition protests.

Among the wounded were a child, the sources added. In the capital, meanwhile, a protest against the regime of Saleh met today to 20,000 people at the University of Sana'a, Yemen's most important and that is the scene of demonstrations since Jan. 27, according to Efe found. The protesters chanted slogans such concentrations common, including "The people want the resignation of the president" and "Let go, let go." In contrast, in Tahrir Square in the center of the capital, gathered nearly 50,000 supporters of the ruling.

They carried banners with his picture and chanted slogans in favor of stability and dialogue and against chaos. The capital of Yemen has been the scene of a series of protests which initially sought to prevent the indefinite reelection of Saleh and eventually passed to directly ask for his resignation.

Although erupted on 27 January, demonstrations have been conducted continuously since 12 February, a day after that, in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak resigned after a popular revolt that erupted on 25 January. As in Aden and Sana'a today there other political protests in populations of different regions of the country, as in the southern Taiz and the Hague and Eb western and the northern province of Saada, according to various sources.

These protests were called by the Joint Committee of the opposition, which brings together six groups led by the Islamic Reform Party and which also included several secular parties like the Socialists or the Baath. Saleh, president of Yemen since unification between north and south, in 1990, was reelected in 1999 and 2006.

The current Constitution, adopted in 1991, does not allow the head of state to seek a new re-election in 2013. The ruling to annul constitutional amendments promoted this limitation and remain in power, but political pressure forced him on 2 February to backtrack on that attempt. Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world.

In addition, Saleh's regime is exposed to continuous actions of Al Qaeda, which has bases in this country to an attempted secession of the south and a Shiite rebellion in the north of the country that operates sporadically.

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