Dubai: Hundreds of students demonstrated in the Yemeni capital yesterday urging Arabs to rise up against their leaders in the wake of Tunisian strongman Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali's ouster.
The students, along with human rights activists, marched from Sana'a University's campus to the Tunisian embassy, AFP reported.
They appealed to Arabs to wage a revolution against leaders and chanted: "Liberty's Tunisia, Sana'a salutes you a thousand times."
"Leave before you are toppled," read one banner, without naming Yemen's officials. "Peaceful and democratic change is our aim in building a new Yemen." In power for the past 32 years, Saleh was re-elected in September 2006 to a seven-year mandate.
In Jordan than 3,000 trade unionists, Islamists and leftists held a sit-in yesterday outside parliament to protest the government's economic policies. "We have been suffering in Jordan the same way Tunisians have been suffering," Muslim Brotherhood leader Hammam Saeed told the protesters
Meanwhile, Arabic newspapers in the region had an extensive coverage of the Tunisian turmoil.
First of its kind
Saudi newspaper Al Raya described the Tunisian revolution as the first of its kind in the Arab world and went on to explain that Tunisia is in a vague transitional phase.
Algerian newspaper Al Fager, however, listed cases in the Arab world where the people have overthrown their leaders. The most prominent example was that of Sudanese President Jaafar Numeiri who was out of the country when thousands of Sudanese took to the streets in May 1985. Numeiri took asylum in Egypt.
Egyptian newspaper Al Masryoun ran a headline "Al Qaradawi congratulates Tunisians for throwing out the tyrant". laph, an Arab electronic news website, reported that the Egyptian opposition is discussing the possibility of following the Tunisian model
Kuwait's Al Qabas considered what happened in Tunisia as the people's will to live while the Saudi's Al Watan described the situation as vague, especially that the streets of Tunis are still full of angry protesters, while the army have put a tight grip over the reins of the state.
Al Hayat, played down the unrest and just mentioned Saudi Arabia hosting Tunisian President and his family, by publishing Saudi Arabia statement, which welcomed the arrival of Bin Ali and his family, and endorsed any action beneficial to the Tunisian people.
Two newspapers took the Tunisian developments as banner headlines. Al Quds Al Araby said "To the Tunisian people, thank you'' and the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar said: "Tunis Gift to the Arabs … a dictator's end".
