Thousands chanted “No election with crowds,” demonstrating on Friday in Algiers a day after the initial legislative elections were announced on June 12, rejected by the anti-regime protest movement Hirak.

A first procession marched from Didouche Mourad Street, the main thoroughfare in the center of the capital, to the Grande Poste, a symbol gathering place for protesters, joined by other processions after a large Friday prayer, especially Belcourt to and from popular areas in Bab el Oyed.

Since the second anniversary of the popular uprising on 22 February, Hirac protesters have resumed their Friday march, with the movement’s weekly mobilization day suspended for a full year due to the coronovirus epidemic.

“For its safety, the system says: legislative” can be read on a poster that the crowd called “civil status and not military”, which was one of the movement’s major slogans.

While public gatherings are prohibited due to the epidemic, protesters also took to the streets of Oran (West), Tizi Ouzou, Skikda, Jijel or Annaba (East).

The arrests took place according to the National Committee for the Release of Prisoners, a subsidiary association.

President Abdelmadzid Teboune on Thursday called for parliamentary elections to be held on June 12 in an attempt to regain control of the face of the pro-democracy movement in the streets.

The ballots were initially scheduled to be held in 2022, but Mr Tebbouane dissolved the National People’s Assembly (APN), the lower house of parliament, on February 21, paving the way for these early Legislative Assembly elections.

To respond to the government’s political crisis for two years, it released dozens of prisoners of conscience and called protesters, who have continued to demand the abolition of the “system” since Algeria’s independence (1962)), electoral To be equal to the time limit.