Shock waves from the ouster of Presidents in Tunisia and Egypt continued to roll across North Africa and West Asia on Monday with peoples long subject to autocratic rule demanding to be heard.
Despite many states cautiously welcoming the overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, their own populations have been seized by the momentum and are demanding greater freedoms and reform.
Opposition leaders in Algeria planned a second protest march in the capital despite a long-standing ban on demonstrations. Bahraini police used teargas to disperse dozens of protesters in the eastern village of Nuwaidrat, as security forces deployed in the tiny Gulf kingdom following Facebook calls for a February 14 “revolt”.
In Egypt, the new military regime called on workers to end a wave of strikes and civil disobedience in the wake of the fall of Mubarak’s government.
In Tehran, thousands of defiant Iranian Opposition supporters staged what they said was a rally supporting Arab revolts as riot police fired teargas and paint balls to disperse them, witnesses said.
Baghdad, meanwhile, will on March 29 host its first annual Arab summit since the US-led of invasion of 2003, in the wake of popular uprisings.
Facebook groups numbering several hundred members have called for demonstrations to mark a “day of rage” in Libya on February 17 modelled on similar protests in other Arab countries.
In the Palestinian Territories, President Mahmud Abbas reappointed Salam Fayyad as Premier and tasked him with forming a new government after his Cabinet resigned while in Yemen pro-democracy protesters clashed violently with police and supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, with clashes also reported in Taez, south of the capital.