Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has issued his first warning on Thursday to protesters who have taken to the streets in thousands to demand an end to his 20-year rule, saying the unrest could destabilise the country.
In the latest demonstration, hundreds of lawyers in black robes rallied in downtown Algiers on Thursday as momentum gathered in the country’s most sustained protests since the 2011 Arab Spring.
Bouteflicka, 82 and ailing, has not spoken in public since suffering a stroke in 2013 and he is staying in a hospital in Geneva, despite his ill-health has submitted his candidacy papers to run for the fifth term as President.
Tens of thousands of Algerians, tired of the dominance of elderly veterans of the 1954-1962 war of independence against France, have protested for the past three weeks to urge Bouteflika not to stand in an election scheduled for April 18.
