Thousands of students held a march in central Algiers on Tuesday to call for better education standards, in defiance of a government ban on demonstrations in the Algerian capital. The students, estimated at between 2 000 and 3 000, ran up against cordons of police deployed in downtown Algiers from the early hours of the morning, journalists at the scene reported. In one tense stand-off, police charged at the students with batons, after which the protesters withdrew, some with blood on their faces, to the city centre where they continued demonstrating.
The demonstrators, who came from several districts of the country, did not succeed in reaching the government buildings, where the prime minister was, on account of a strong police presence in all the side streets.