Algerian security forces sealed off a main road to the Algerian capital yesterday, thwarting a protest march planned by anti-government Berber activists.
For the second month in a row, the tight security cordon foiled attempts by ethnic minority Berbers to demonstrate in Algiers in defiance of a government ban.
Berbers have been organising pro-democracy marches in the vast north African country for the past three months.
Paramilitary gendarmes in full riot gear, backed by armoured vehicles, set up checkpoints on the four-lane motorway from Algiers to Tizi Ouzou, the main city in Berber-speaking Kabylie, 90 km to the east, witnesses said.
Gendarmes stopped and searched all vehicles with licence plates from Kabylie, a restive region where two months of violent street clashes and popular unrest began in April after the death of a youth shot by a gendarme while in custody.
In Algiers, riot police were deployed with water cannon at main intersections.
They cordoned off a large area around the July 5th Olympic stadium where marchers had planned to gather and where the 15th World Youth and Student Festival was due to be inaugurated last night. There was no protester in sight but political sources said up to 200 people were arrested there earlier in the day.
Berbers have accused the government of trying to use the week-long festival - which organisers said drew 14,000 people from 112 countries - to improve Algeria's international image.
The military-backed government banned demonstrations in the capital in June at the height of an unprecedented popular revolt in which at least 55 protesters were killed, shot dead by security forces mainly in Kabylie, and 2,000 wounded. Berber militants put the death toll at over 100.
At Tidjelabine, 30 km from Algiers, gendarmes fired tear gas canisters to push back hundreds of youths trying to force their way through the roadblock.
With gendarmes urging them to disperse and go home, up to 2,000 protesters staged a sit-in, on both sides of the motorway.