Pakistan Observer

Yemen forces fire on marchers demanding Saleh trial

Sunday, December 25, 2011 - Sanaa—Forces loyal to Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh fired guns, tear gas and water cannons to keep tens of thousands of protesters away from the president’s compound in Sanaa on Saturday, killing at least one woman, witnesses said.

In southern Yemen, gunmen killed a Briton of Yemeni origin and wounded a soldier accompanying him in an attack on an oil company vehicle that a local official blamed on highway robbers. In Sanaa, residents said shots rang out when riot police and troops blocked activists who had reached the capital chanting “No to immunity,” at the climax of a mass march that began days earlier in the city of Taiz, 200 km (125 miles) to the south.

The protesters were denouncing a deal granting Saleh immunity from prosecution for his part in a violent crackdown on months of demonstrations against his 33-year rule. In return, the president has handed over his powers to his deputy, pending a presidential election scheduled for February. One woman marcher was killed, said activists. Medics said 10 people were wounded, some by bullets or tear gas canisters.

The immunity deal was crafted by Yemen’s rich neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to ease Saleh from power and avert civil war in a country that hosts an ambitious wing of al Qaeda and sits next to vital oil shipping lanes.

An interim government preparing for the presidential election has promised to separate pro-Saleh troops from tribal militia and rebel army units in Sanaa and elsewhere. If he goes, Saleh would be the fourth leader to surrender power after mass protests that have redrawn the political map in North Africa and the Middle East in the past 12 months.—Reuters
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