CAIRO, Egypt — Security forces in Libya and Yemen fired on pro-democracy demonstrators Saturday as the two hard-line regimes struck back against the wave of protests that has already toppled autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia. At least 15 people died when police shot into crowds of mourners in Libya’s second largest city, a hospital official said.
Even as Bahrain’s king bowed to international pressure and withdrew tanks, allowing demonstrators to retake a symbolic square in the capital, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh made clear that they plan to stamp out opposition and not be dragged down by the campaigns for change that havegrown in nations from Algeria to Djibouti to Jordan.
Libyans returned to the street for a fifth-straight day of protests against Gadhafi, the most serious uprising in his 42-year reign, despite estimates by human-rights groups of 84 deaths in the North African country - with 35 on Friday alone.
Saturday’s deaths, which pushed the overall toll to 99, occurred when snipers fired on thousands of mourners in Benghazi, a focal point of unrest, as they attended the funerals of other protesters,a hospital official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
“Many of the dead and the injured are relatives of doctors here,” he said in a telephone interview. “They are crying and I keep telling them to please stand up and help us.”
Earlier, special forces had attacked hundreds of demonstrators, including lawyers and judges, who were camped out in front of a courthouse in Benghazi.
http://www.arkansas…">Protests rock Mideast
Authorities also cut off the Internet across Libya, further isolating the country. Just after 2 a.m. Libya time, the U.S.-based Arbor Networks security company detected a total cessation of online traffic in Libya. Protesters confirmed they could not get online.
Reports could not be independently confirmed. Information is tightly controlled in Libya, where journalists cannot work freely, and activists last week posted videos on the Internet that have been an important source of images of the revolt. Other information about the protests has come from opposition activists in exile.
A female protester in Tripoli, the capital city to the west, said it was much harder to demonstrate there. Police were out in force and Gadhafi was greeted enthusiastically when he drove through town in a motorcade on Thursday.
Throughout the Middle East, protesters for weeks have been crying out against a similar litany of injustices: repressive governments, corrupt officials and low wages among them. Government responses seem to be hardening. While there was violence during the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the government retaliation in Yemen and Libya in particular appeared to be more sustained.
In Yemen’s capital, Sana, riot police opened fire on thousands of protesters, killing one anti-government demonstrator and injuring five others on a 10th day of revolt against Saleh, a key U.S. ally in fighting al-Qaida.
As on other days last week, protesters marching from Sana’s university were met by police and government supporters with clubs and knives who engaged in a stone-throwing battle with the demonstrators. At one point, police fired in the air to disperse the march.
A medical official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said one man was shot in the neck and killed, raising the death toll from Yemen protests to seven.
In a meeting with civic leaders, Saleh said Yemenis have the right to express themselves peacefully and the perpetrators of the unrest were trying to seize power by fomenting instability.
“The homeland is facing a foreign plot that threatens its future,” Saleh said, without elaborating.
Saleh, who has been in power for three decades, has tried to blunt discontent by promising not to seek re-election when his term ends in 2013.
But he is facing a restless population, with threats from al-Qaida militants who want to oust him, a southern secessionist movement and a sporadic armed rebellion in the north. To try to quell new outbursts of dissent, Saleh also has reached out to tribal chiefs, who are a prime base of support for him. So far, however, that has not changed the response in the streets.
In the tiny island nation of Bahrain, thousands of joyful protesters streamed back into the capital’s central Pearl Square after the armed forces withdrew from the streets after two straight days of a bloody crackdown.
“All Bahrain is happy today,” said Jasim Al Haiki, 24, as he cheered the crowds in the central Pearl Square, aflutter with Bahraini flags. “These are Bahrainis. They do what they say they will do!”
The royal family was quick to use force last week against demonstrators in the landmark square that has been the heart of the anti-government demonstrations.
On Saturday, the police left so suddenly and so completely that it took a minute for the protesters to realize they were gone and that they once again controlled Pearl Square. By early evening, tens of thousands of people were pouring into the square, waving flags, some dropping to the ground to pray, others shouting congratulations to one another.
The monarchy appeared to back away from further confrontation after international pressure.
President Barack Obama discussed the situation with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, asking him to hold those responsible for the violence accountable. He said in a statement that Bahrain must respect the “universal rights” of its people and embrace“meaningful reform.”
National security adviser Tom Donilon spoke by telephone with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa on Saturday and expressed support for the steps the government is taking to “show restraint and initiate dialogue with all segments of Bahraini society,” the White House said in a statement.
The demonstrators have emulated protesters in Tunisia and Egypt by attempting to bring political change to the government in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet - the centerpiece of Washington’s efforts to confront Iranian military influence in the region.
The crown prince, who serves as deputy supreme commander of the armed forces, appealed for calm and political dialogue in a brief address on state TV.
As night fell, though, protesters in Pearl Square erected barriers, wired a sound system, set up a makeshift medical tent and deployed lookouts to warn of approaching security forces.
The withdrawal of forces from Pearl Square had been the opposition’s precondition for negotiations, but by Saturday a movement that began as a call for immediate democratic changes seemed set on nothing less than the removal of the king, or at least, his uncle, the prime minister.
The most common chants heard in the square Saturday night were “Death to Khalifa!” and “The people want the government to fall.”
The long-standing root of the tension in Bahrain is the sectarian divide, a Sunni royal family ruling over a Shiite majority. For years, the Shiites have complained of discrimination in housing, employment, education and governance.
Protesters took over the square earlier in the week, setting up a camp with tents and placards, but they were driven out by riot police in a deadly assault Thursday that killed five people and injured more than 200. The government then clamped down on Manama by sending the tanks and other armored vehicles into the streets around the square, putting up barbed wire and establishing checkpoints to deter gatherings.
On Friday, army units shot at marchers streaming toward the square. More than 50 people were injured.
Some of the protesters Saturday were wary of Bahrain’s leaders, despite the military withdrawal.
“Of course we don’t trust them,” said Ahmed al-Shaik, a 23-year-old civil servant. “They will probably attack more and more, but we have no fear now.”
Algerian police, meanwhile, thwarted a rally by thousands of pro-democracy supporters, breaking up the crowd into isolated groups to keep them from marching.
Police brandishing clubs, but no firearms, weaved their way through the crowd in central Algiers, banging their shields, tackling some protesters and keeping traffic flowing through the planned march route.
A demonstrating lawmaker was hospitalized after suffering a head wound when he fell after police kicked and hit him, colleagues said.
The gathering, organized by the Coordination for Democratic Change in Algeria, comes a week after a similar protest, which organizers said drew an estimated 10,000 people and up to 26,000 riot police onto the streets of Algiers. Algeria has also been hit by numerous strikes over the past month.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has promised to lift the state of emergency, which has been in place since early 1992 to combat a budding insurgency by Islamist extremists. The insurgency, which continues sporadically, has killed an estimated 200,000 people.
Bouteflika has warned, however, that a long-standing ban on protests in Algiers would remain in place, even once the state of emergency is lifted.
Algeria does have many of the ingredients for a popular revolt. It is riddled with corruption and has never successfully grappled with its soaring jobless rate among youth - estimated by some to be up to 42 percent - despite its oil and gas wealth.
“The people are for change, but peacefully,” said sociologist Nasser Djebbi. “We have paid a high price.”
Protesters clashed with police in Djibouti, the Horn of Africa nation where President Ismail Guelleh’s People’s Rally for Progress party has ruled since independence from France in 1977. The U.S. has its only African base in Djibouti, with about 2,000 workers.
As many as 20,000 people joined in Friday protests, according to opposition leader Mohamed Daoud Chehem, head of the Djibouti Party for Development.
Meanwhile, demonstrators thronged streets in northern Iraq on Saturday to demand justice over a deadly shooting at a protest last week.
The Saturday demonstrations in the capital and in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah were peaceful, but five protesters were killed in the past week.
In Sulaimaniyah, a few thousand demonstrators took to the streets, demanding that those responsible for a shooting Thursday earlier that killed two people and injured nearly 50 be held responsible.
Information for this article was contributed by Maggie Michael, Brian Friedman, Ahmed al-Haj, Hadeel al-Shalchi, Barbara Surk, Elaine Ganley, John Affleck, Yahya Barzanji and Saad Abdul-Kadir of The Associated Press; by Michael Slackman and Nadim Audi of The New York Times; and by Glen Carey, Terry Atlas, Viola Gienger, Kate Andersen Brower, Joe Sobczyk, Joseph Link, Camilla Hall, Fiona MacDonald, Vivian Salama, Caroline Alexander, Maram Mazen, William Davison, Mohammed Hatam, Salah Slimani and Benjamin Harvey of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/20/2011