Aden: Thousands of people demonstrated in south Yemen on Wednesday to demand the release of Hassan Baoum, the leader of the southern opposition in Yemen, witnesses said.
Baoum was arrested late on Tuesday with several others including one of his sons, at an army checkpoint outside the southern town of Daleh, a security official said.
The security source said the opposition leader was "planning to hold unauthorised protests in a number of southern provinces".
Baoum heads the supreme council of the Southern Movement, the main organiser of protests in southern Yemen. The movement's members want independence or increased autonomy for the south.
The Southern Movement issued a statement calling for demonstrations across Yemen's southern provinces to protest against Baoum's arrest. Thousands of people took to the streets in Daleh and set tyres ablaze, witnesses said.
Baoum is a former leader of the Yemen Socialist Party, the former ruling party of south Yemen.
Many residents of south Yemen, which was independent from when the British withdrew in 1967 until it was forced to unite with the north in 1990, have complained that the Sana’a government has discriminated against it when it came to the distribution of resources.
The south seceded in 1994, sparking a brief civil war that ended when the region was overrun by northern troops.
