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Anti-Government Rally In Algiers Brings 200,000
ALGIERS, May 31 (News Agencies) - Some 200,000 people marched Thursday in Algiers to denounce brutal police repression of Berber people in Algeria's northeastern Kabylie region, in a protest that ended in skirmishes between rival groups of youths.
The opposition Socialist Forces Front (FFS) party called the rally in protest at a bloody crackdown on unrest in Kabylie by paramilitary police. Local people have demanded that these police units be withdrawn.
A young protester was shot and injured after the demonstration as he headed away in a truck, the FFS said. It gave no further details of the shooting.
It named the youth as Hamid Haniche, 19, and said he had been admitted to hospital in a comatose state.
Skirmishes during the march pitted a group of demonstrators from Kabylie against young supporters of an Algiers football club who came from the Bab el Oued district in the Casbah (old city).
Police tried to separate them but gave up as stones flew.
Many of the mainly youthful demonstrators had come to the capital from the ethnic Berber region, where the FFS has strong support and where resentment is widespread against the mainly Arabic-speaking, army-backed regime.
Since April 18th, when a youth was fatally shot in police custody in Kabylie and rioting broke out, 51 people have been killed and 1,300 injured, according to officials.
Witnesses, the press and the opposition say that between 60 and 80 people have been killed in Kabylie towns and villages and several thousand have been injured in battles between riot police using tear gas and live ammunition and stone-throwing youths.
The FFS, led by veteran politician Hocine Ait Ahmed, who has been living in Switzerland for medical treatment, called Thursday's rally in the capital to demand "truth, justice and freedom".
Demonstrators gathered at a square in the east of the capital and began marching to Martyrs' Square in the west of Algiers, at the foot of the Casbah overlooking the port, along a route negotiated with the authorities.
Little violence was reported until a gang of youths broke the windows of a bank and smashed streetlights and shop signs on Martyrs' Square.
FFS officials had originally planned to head for President Abdelaziz Boutelika's residence in El Mouradia palace overlooking the city.
In sweltering heat, marchers carried banners reading "Enough of the Generals" and" Press Freedom!" and calling for an international inquiry into the causes of the violence.
They shouted slogans such as "Bouteflika out" and "If you want war, we're not scared".
Police were deployed along the route of the march but their presence was discreet.
In the past month, lawyers and journalists have also held protest rallies, particularly in the wake of the introduction of legislation seen as a bid to muzzle Algeria's private press.
Bouteflika has pledged a full public inquiry into the grievances of the Berber people, but many in Kabylie have dismissed his proposal of a domestic commission with scorn.
On Sunday, however, he warned that the government would crack down hard on those held responsible for the disturbances.
Berbers living in the two Kabylie provinces are estimated to comprise up to 20% of Algeria's population of some 29 million.
Long-standing demands for cultural recognition and anger over the imposition of Arabic as the only national language have been compounded by resentment over perceived official nepotism and corruption.
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