Algiers: More than 400 people have been detained in Algeria where thousands of people defied a ban to rally in the capital, according to media reports on Sunday.
Ali Yahia Abdenour, head of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, said foreign journalists were among those detained.
Protesters demanded for democratic reforms and clashed with baton-wielding police on Saturday, demanding for President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika to step down.
The opposition in Algeria said demonstrators' bold defiance of a long-standing ban on public protests in Algiers marked a turning point.
Under Algeria's long-standing state of emergency in place since 1992, protests are banned in Algiers, but repeated government warnings for people to stay away fell on deaf ears. Human rights activists say more than 400 people were arrested.
"This demonstration is a success because it's been 10 years that people haven't been able to march in Algiers and there's a sort of psychological barrier," said Ali Rachedi, the former head of the Front of Socialist Forces party. "The fear is gone."
Organisers said as many as 26,000 riot police were deployed to try to quash Saturday's rally, but that an estimated 10,000 people succeeded in jostling, squeezing and jumping over the barricades and gathering in the city center before the protest was broken up. Officials put turnout at the rally at 1,500.
Said Sadi, who heads the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy, RCD, said the scale of the police deployment was evidence of "the fear of this government, which is in dire straits."
"We're going to continue to demonstrate and to defy the authorities until they fall," Sadi vowed.
Fadil Bamaleh, Secretary General of the Coordination for Democratic Change in Algeria (CDCA), told Gulf News the ban on demonstrations in Algiers imposed by the government two weeks ago is illegal and the CDCA has pledged not to acknowledge it.
In a telephone interview from his location in the May 1st Square, Bamaleh said thousands of demonstrators from all over the country have come to take part in the event in a bid to show the government that the people of Algeria will not accept any more restrictions on their freedom and right of expression.
He said 18 non-governmental organisations representing youth, human rights groups and families of prisoners and missing people in addition to a women's rights organisation have formed the Facebook CDCA to demand a change of the Algerian regime.
"The formation of the group was made prior to the collapse of the dictatorial regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. The encouraging developments in the two Arab countries, however, have had a positive impact on members of the group. We pledged not to stop our protests that will cover all the country before toppling the existing regime," he said.
Bamaleh said Bouteflika has failed to install democracy and promote much-needed economic and social development in the country.
With input from Duraid Al Baik, Associate Editor
