ALGIERS: A court in the Algerian desert city of Ghardaia yesterday detained 10 people for their alleged involvement in sectarian clashes in the area that killed five people.
The city of 90,000 inhabitants has been rocked since December by clashes between the Chaamba community of Arab origin and the majority Mozabites, indigenous Berbers belonging to the Ibadi Muslim sect.
The 10 people were caught “red handed” and another 16 were released on bail, Algerian news agency APS reported.
It did not say whether those arrested were from the Chaamba or Mozabite community.
Authorities have also launched an investigation into the events that led to the deaths, APS quoted a security source as saying.
The latest violence between youths from the two communities erupted on Tuesday when a Mozabite teaching centre was torched.
A young Berber died of his wounds two days later, bringing the number of dead from the Mozabite community to four.
Local press reports said a fifth person died of hi injuries in January.
Morocco bans judges’ protest
RABAT: Moroccan authorities banned a sit-in by hundreds of judges who want greater independence for the judiciary, deploying dozens of riot police to central Rabat and closing off streets around the Justice Ministry.
Nearly three years after protests inspired by the Arab Spring prompted King Mohamed to undertake limited reforms and propelled an Islamist party to power, his government is now re-asserting its authority in what rights groups describe as a step backwards.
Since independence in 1956, Morocco’s justice system has been seen by critics as largely under the control of the North African country’s powerful monarchy.
The reforms introduced by the king in 2011 did award the judiciary more autonomy, but the opposition says it is still not fully independent.
The sit-in in Rabat was called by the Judges’ Club, an independent organisation formed by Moroccan magistrates during the 2011 protests. It was to be only their second demonstration, the first having passed peacefully in 2012. Morocco’s Interior Ministry announced late on Friday that it had banned the protest.
Ultra-Orthodox man stabbed in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM: A knife-wielding assailant, apparently an Arab, stabbed and wounded an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man yesterday in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, police said.
The attack took place near the Old City’s Damascus Gate and “the assailant was apparently an Arab man” a police spokesman said, adding that an investigation was under way.
The victim was slightly wounded, he said, but no other details were immediately available.
Agencies
