SANA’A: Hundreds rallied in Yemen’s capital yesterday, on the anniversary of the 2011 killing of 45 protesters against Ali Abdullah Saleh, demanding that the former president and aides be tried for their deaths. On March 18, 2011, dubbed the “Friday of Dignity,” gunmen loyal to Saleh shot dead 45 protesters, most of them university students, and wounded another 200 in just three hours, according to figures compiled by Human Rights Watch.
This was at the beginning of a popular uprising against Saleh’s three-decade rule inspired by the so-called Arab Spring that had already swept rulers from power in Tunisia and Egypt.
After a year of protests and clashes between demonstrators and forces loyal to him, Saleh stepped down in February 2012 under a deal that granted him immunity from prosecution.
Holding up symbolic coffins, yesterday’s demonstrators chanted “no immunity for the killers” and “Saleh and his aides should be put on trial.” The demonstration was organised by the Youth Revolutionary Council, one of the groups that led the year-long uprising against Saleh.
A statement read at the demonstration in Sanaa’s Change Square, the epicentre of the anti-regime protests, called for Attorney General Ahmed al-Awash, a Saleh appointee, to be sacked. They accuse him of covering up for the perpetrators of the attack.
Saleh is still head of his General People’s Congress party and his critics accuse him of trying to hamper the country’s political transition.
He only agreed to step down under the UN-backed deal, brokered by Gulf nations, which gave him and his aides immunity. But youth groups have rejected that, and continue to stage rallies demanding justice.
EU offers €180m aid to Jordan
BRUSSELS: The European Commission signed off on a 180 million euro aid package for Jordan yesterday to help it assist refugees from Syria and cope with a disruption of gas imports from Egypt.
Under the terms of a deal signed by Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn and Jordan’s Finance Minister Umayya Toukan, the EU executive offered Amman a medium-term loan in two instalments this year of ¤100m and ¤80m ($250m in total).
“The EU is helping Jordan to weather the severe impact of the regional economic and political crisis,” Rehn said. “This assistance will help ease Jordan’s financing constraints and support its economic reforms.” The aid aims to help Jordan address the consequences of a number of external economic shocks, notably related to the conflict in Syria and the disruption in gas imports from Egypt.
US seizure act of piracy: Libyan rebels
TRIPOLI: Libyan rebels said the US seizure of a tanker that loaded crude at a port under their control was an illegal act of piracy, according to a statement run by a rebel television station yesterday.
Abb-Rabbo Al Barassi, the rebels’ self-declared prime minister, said the storming of the tanker by US Navy commandos had violated international law, the statement said. Last week, the tanker had loaded oil at the rebel-held Es Sider port and escaped the Libyan navy before US forces seized it on Sunday night off the Cyprus coast.
Agencies
