Algerians take to the streets on the first anniversary of the protests

Thousands of Algerians took to the streets again on Saturday to demand the fall of the regime on the first anniversary of the citizens' protest movement 'Hirak', which has been calling every Tuesday and Friday since February 22, 2019, for an end to corruption and for a change that would end the military system that has dominated the country since its independence from France in 1962.

The Algerians marched through the center of the capital with cries of "The people want the system to fall" or "No to military power, we want a civil state and not a military one" and promised to continue the peaceful protest "until the military withdraws" from the presidential palace of Al Muradia.

The protesters overflowed Didouch Mourad Avenue in the direction of the Place de la Grande Poste, the epicentre of the marches, chanting "We haven't come for the party, we' re here to make you leave", the chant chosen in response to the decision by the new Algerian president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, to declare 22 February a national holiday.

As in the previous days, thousands of anti-riot units, gendarmes, police and ‘plainclothesmen’ guarded the march and infiltrated among the protesters, who managed to reach the center of the city, which had been blocked from traffic since early morning.

Among those who were able to elude the police controls was Fadila, a woman who has been participating in the popular marches with her husband and two girls for a year and who also demonstrated this Friday to express, once again, her "rejection" to the current power and to demand a real change. "We have been marching for a year to achieve the fall of this corrupt system, which is related to the system of (the resigned President Abdelaziz) Bouteflika. We haven't seen any change at all, they are the same faces and the same policy, we don't want a military state, we want a civilian state that applies Articles 7 and 8 of the Constitution and hands power to the people," she said. "We can' t celebrate this first year while the militants are still in prison and the mafia is still free," added Fadila, who referred to the recent expulsion of the director general of the operator Oooredoo, who was arrested and deported from Algiers international airport on the orders of the Algerian president after he announced the dismissal of 900 workers.

The 'Hirak' soon achieved its first objective, the resignation in April of Bouteflika, who had been in power since 1999, but he still keeps his finger on the pulse because he believes that his successor, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a man close to the army elected on 12 December, is only trying to make cosmetic changes to ensure that nothing really changes. Tebboune was elected in an elections that recorded the highest abstention in the country's history.