Thousands of mostly anti-government protesters flooded the streets of Yemen’s capital Sana’a and other cities in the Arab country on Thursday, continuing despite President Ali Abdullah Saleh proposing to abdicate his position in the 2013 election the day before, hoping to prevent the protests.
After Egyptian social unrest that threatened the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, tens of thousands of opposition protesters, including more than 20,000 in Sana’a, mimicked similar demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt, criticizing Saleh’s alleged “monopoly of power,” Reuters and the state-run media Yemen News Agency (SABA) reported.
“The people want regime change,” Reuters quoted shouting opposition protesters. “No to corruption, no to dictatorship!”
The ire from the Yemenis stemmed from Saleh’s 32-year rule and were sparked by recent uprisings in the Arab world. Demonstrations on Thursday were held in spite of Saleh’s announcement on Wednesday that he would be stepping down in 2013 among other political concessions, a move seemingly meant to appease the uprising similar to the one made by Egypt’s Mubarak.
According to SABA, protesters included “civil society organizations, trade unions, social figures and women” and numbered in the hundreds of thousands. On Yemen’s “Day of Rage,” thousands pro-Saleh demonstrators also turned out to peacefully confront the opposition.
Throughout Yemen, protesters from both sides chanted and held banners, occupying public areas and streets in Taiz, a city for which Saleh was once military governor, and a slew of southern towns where separatist movements are strong, SABA and Reuters said.
Similar protests were held in late January, when 16,000 Yemenis demonstrated in Sana’a. According to an MSNBC report, opposition groups in Syria are also trying to plan their own “Day of Rage” in objection to President Bashar al-Assad’s decade-long rule.
