Demo in Riyadh against arrests of dissidents
RIYADH: Hundreds of Saudis took to the streets in Riyadh on Tuesday to denounce arrests of dissidents and demand reforms, following a call from an exiled opposition group, in a rare protest in the kingdom.
Witnesses said hundreds of people, mostly youths, demonstrated in front of Al-Mamlaka shopping mall and blocking traffic. Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters and arrested some, they said. Police officials were not immediately available for comment.
The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) wrote off the protest as "a rally by a number of individuals", which "disrupted traffic" in a busy district of the Saudi capital. In a report in the evening, the SPA said: "A number of individuals had gathered, causing traffic congestion, when curious bystanders paused to watch. The police immediately dealt with this gathering in accordance with security duties and returned traffic to its normal course."
Baton-wielding anti-riot police intervened to disperse the protesters who gathered outside the Kingdom Tower on the main Al-Ulaya thoroughfare to rally against the detention of government opponents, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. Witnesses said police arrested a number of protesters, mostly youngsters. They added some of the protesters were chanting religious phrases such as, "God is great," but no anti-regime chants were heard.
AFP’s correspondent said dozens of people, including women, attempted to gather near the area of the main rally after they were dispersed by police, only to scatter again when security forces came. The scene was repeated several times until the protest ended around three hours later at about 6:30 pm (1530 GMT).
The protesters did not carry banners. However, one woman was seen raising a portrait of a man thought to be either a political detainee or one of the militants killed in clashes with Saudi security forces that have taken place in several parts of the country in recent months in the course of a government crackdown on suspected terrorists.
The protests appeared to be in response to repeated calls by the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (Mira) for Saudis to gather in central Riyadh to ask for political, economic, and administrative reforms. The opposition group timed the protest to coincide with a human rights conference, organised by the Saudi Red Crescent and is being attended by representatives of around 15 countries, including the United States.
Saad al-Fagih, Mira’s director, said the protesters called on authorities to free reform activists allegedly in Saudi custody. "It was a totally peaceful sit-in but Saudi police handled it in a very violent manner that it turned into chaos," al-Fagih told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from London.
He said police detained nearly 300 protesters. He said one of the detained women, calling herself Um Saud, called Mira’s radio station through a cellular phone to report she was taken on a bus with other protesters to jail. Al-Fagih said confrontations were continuing between protesters and police, but one of the arrested said many of the people detained were released after a few hours. |
