Yemen Police Kill 4 Protesters, Wound Hundreds More In Crackdown On Anti-Government Protests

Four dead and hundreds wounded in Sana’a and Aden as William Hague expresses concern over ongoing violence


Yemeni security forces have killed four people in a crackdown on protests against president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Photograph: Muhammed Muheisen/AP

Yemeni security forces have killed four people and wounded hundreds more in the second day of a harsh crackdown on anti-government protests, witnesses said. One of the dead was a 15-year-old student.

The assault with gunfire and tear gas was the toughest yet by the government in a month of protests aimed at unseating the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years. An ally in the Obama administration’s fight against al-Qaida, Saleh had appeared to be one of the Arab leaders most threatened by the regional unrest inspired by revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.

The violence began with a pre-dawn raid on a central square in the capital, Sana’a, where thousands of pro-democracy protesters have been camped out.

Eyewitnesses said security troops surrounded the square with police cars and armoured personnel carriers shortly after midnight and began calling on protesters through loudspeakers to go home. At 5am, security forces attacked, firing bullets and tear gas.

One protester died from a bullet to the head, which may have come from a sniper on the rooftop of a nearby building, witnesses said.

“We were performing dawn prayers when we were surprised by a sudden hail of bullets and tear gas,” said Walid Hassan, a 25-year-old activist. “The protesters began throwing rocks at security … it was total mayhem, a real battlefield.”

A few hours later, another protester was shot dead in a nearby street. In the city of Dar Saad in the southern province of Aden, police used live fire and tear gas to disperse a crowd of several thousand, killing one demonstrator. .

Saturday’s raid on the Sana’a square came after Yemen‘s largest demonstrations in a month the day before were met by police gunfire that injured at least six protesters.

Foreign secretary William Hague described the violence used against protesters in Yemen as unacceptable.

In a statement from the Foreign Office, he said “I was shocked by the unacceptable violence seen in Sana’a today. The United Kingdom remains seriously concerned over repeated clashes with protesters and reports of intimidation of journalists in recent days. This is in direct contradiction to the President’s recent announcement on constitutional reform and fresh elections, which we have welcomed. We urge the Yemeni authorities to demonstrate their commitment to an orderly and peaceful transition by respecting the right of peaceful protest and free speech.”

The Foreign Office is now advising British nationals to leave Yemen as soon as they can in light of the intensity of the violence.

Alan Evans and agencies
Saturday 12 March 2011 20.39 GMT

Source: The Guardian

1 thought on “Yemen Police Kill 4 Protesters, Wound Hundreds More In Crackdown On Anti-Government Protests”

  1. Yemen security forces kill protesters, or CIA operatives working in Lybia and Yemen to cause riots as an excuse for war to bolster another government install that will be added to the NWO Arab Nations commanded by Israel.

    The reason US Nato grunts have to take up slack in Lybia is because resources are running low for the NWO agenda and they have to focus on Yemen.

    Want to know who is next on the list ?, just look at Israel, Afghanistan Yemen, and Lybia on the map and consider that Iran poses a threat to there objectives, then go place a bet.

    And…

    How can Palestinians back out of peace talks when they are in the worlds largest DEATH CAMP ?, that’s exactly like world war II NAZI’s saying that Jewish prisoners backed out of peace talks so we had to sniper them and bomb them with cluster grenades.

    Based on the fact that the Bush family funded the NAZI’s am I to assume what’s happening here is the fourth Reich and that we are to believe these total lies on TV ?

    The USA spends more money on providing the Israel war machine than Israel spends on arming its war machine, just because the truth isn’t reported on the supporting governments TV doesn’t mean people are not aware of the truth.

    It just means that the people running our media networks have betrayed the Human race, there siblings and life itself because there to afraid to represent the Human race like they swore to when they took up the job.

    Reply

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