Algerian security forces and demonstrators clashed sporadically on Friday during protests denouncing brutal police repression of Berbers, witnesses said.
Demonstrators clashed with police in Tigzirt and Tadmait in Algeria's northeastern Kabylie region, while Tizi Ouzou, the scene of deadly clashes since April, remained largely calm, said the witnesses, cited by AFP.
Molotov cocktails thrown against police buildings on Thursday in Tigzirt and Boudjima gutted several government buildings.
Some 200,000 people had taken to the streets of Algiers on Thursday to protest the police repression of the Berber people.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika pledged last Sunday harsh punishment for those involved in riots in the restive Berber Kabylie region.
But Bouteflika ignored the Berber protesters' main demand that he pull paramilitary gendarmes out of the Berber-speaking region, convulsed by almost daily clashes since the death of a teenager in custody at a gendarmerie barracks on April 18.
"Severe penalties are inevitable, penalties which are clear and proportionate with the transgressions from whatever quarter they have come," Bouteflika said in a speech broadcast by state media.
The government has admitted security forces have shot dead 51 protesters and wounded 280 others since the clashes broke out. Independent newspapers say up to 80 rioters have died – Albawaba.com
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