Follow the day's events in Algeria and Egypt on liveblogging from FRANCE 24.
AFP - Major security forces were deployed in Algeria in anticipation of events "to change the system" Saturday at 11:00 am (1000 GMT), the call of the National Coordination for Democracy and Change (CNDC) and could be encouraged by the departure of President Hosni Mubarak.
Several marches and rallies are planned across the country, but in Algiers, police, came in number-between 25,000 and 30,000 according to the press, were visible as early as Friday.
Police roadblocks set up at entrances to the capital since suicide bombings in April and December 2007, claimed by Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), were also strengthened.
A demonstration organized apparently it at the last minute to salute the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, before the head of the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD opposition) Friday in Algiers was stopped by a cordon of police activists who pushed in and made a dozen arrests.
The march of Algiers has not been authorized under a ban in force since 2001. The demonstrators nevertheless go to the Place de la Concorde (better known under its former name Place May 1st) at 11:00 to get to Martyrs' Square at the foot of the Casbah and the entrance of Bab el Oued , traditional theater of revolt.
In Oran, 430 km from Algiers, Wilaya denied permission to demonstrate. But the NCCD maintains its watchword, and calls for a gathering place November 1st in front of City Hall Thursday she was distributing leaflets still in this great city in western Algeria.
Other cities also intend to answer the call which, on the east coast, Boumerdes, Bejaia, then south-east of Algiers, Tizi Ouzou, the main town of Kabylie, and west, Tipaza, among others.
Finally, in the main town in eastern Algeria, Annaba, leaflets calling on citizens to participate in the march were intercepted by police in recent days. A police source described them as "demoralizing" and a threat to the safety of goods and people.
The CNDC was created on January 21 by opposition parties, civil society and autonomous unions in the wake of riots earlier this year that have killed 5 people and injured over 800.
