Saturday, March 05, 2011

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets Friday across the Middle East, hoping to push for the ouster of longtime leaders as in Tunisia and Egypt, or simply to bring about more political reforms.
The biggest demonstrations were in Yemen, where tens of thousands of people rallied in several cities – including the capital of Sanaa – calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

At least four people were killed and seven wounded when Yemeni soldiers armed with heavy machine guns shot at protesters throwing rocks at their army post in the northern town of Harf Sofyan. A witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the soldiers apparently believed the protesters were trying to attack the post.
Possibly more than 100,000 protested earlier Friday in one of the largest demonstrations in the capital yet, and similar numbers rallied in Taiz, south of Sanaa.

Saleh rejected Friday an opposition plan for him to step aside this year.
In a political blow to Saleh, Ali Ahmad al-Omrani, an influential ally, resigned in front of tens of thousands of protesters rallying at Sanaa University Friday night.
Omrani, a tribal sheikh from the southern Al-Baida province, is the tenth Parliament member to defect from Saleh’s ruling party since last week.

Protests following Friday prayers have become a weekly tradition throughout the Middle East and North Africa as activists seek to emulate successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
In Saudi Arabia, Shiites held two small protests in the east Friday, demanding the release of a cleric and other prisoners, witnesses, human rights activists and Shiite sources said. More than 100 marched through the city of Hofuf to demand the release of Shiite cleric Tawfiq al-Amir who was arrested after calling for a constitutional monarchy and a fight against corruption, witnesses said.

In the Gulf coast town of Qatif, more than 100 protesters demanded the release of Amir and other detained Shiites, witnesses said. Similar demonstrations were held in Qatif and the neighboring town of Awwamiya Thursday night.

In Iraq, thousands rallied in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country in demonstrations that defied security checkpoints and a vehicle ban.
It was the second Friday in a row of Iraqi demonstrations. Most of the protests were peaceful, but police used water cannons against demonstrators in the southern city of Basra and beat some journalists who were covering the events.

In Bahrain, thousands of protesters chanting slogans against the Sunni dynasty streamed toward state TV headquarters Friday, a day after brief clashes between Sunnis and the majority Shiites. Some women carried roses and placed them on the wall outside the TV compound.

The fighting Thursday night in central Bahrain injured several people but calm quickly returned several hours later. The clashes were triggered by a family dispute or a car accident, or both, according to differing residents’ accounts.
Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of the Islamic National Accord Association, the main Shiite political formation, called Friday for Sunni-Shiite harmony in an address to thousands of demonstrators.

In Oman, hundreds of protesters demanding jobs and political reforms demonstrated across the sultanate Friday. Around 200 protesters gathered in capital Muscat at the headquarters of the Shura Council, where some had camped out overnight.
Similar numbers demonstrated in Salalah, the eastern coastal town of Sur where Oman’s liquefied natural gas export facilities are based, and Sohar.

In Jordan’s capital of Amman, political opponents amplified their calls for the new prime minister to resign and demanded to be brought into a unity government to usher in swift reforms to open up the kingdom’s politics. “Enough is enough, our patience has run out,” shouted political independent Sufian Tal, reflecting the views of many among the 2,000 Jordanians who took to the streets. – Agencies