Police broke up an anti-government march by beating protesters with clubs and launching tear gas into the crowd in Mauritania’s capital, .
The 50 or so protesters had gathered late on Sunday in Nouakchott despite a ban on demonstrations, which ruling junta officials said on Monday was necessary for security reasons.
The protesters demanded that President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi be reinstated, after he was ousted in an August 6 coup led by Genewral Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.
”No to the coup! Yes to democracy!” the protesters shouted before they were forced to disband.
An Associated Press reporter saw police pounding people with clubs and shooting tear gas into a crowd.
The ruling junta last week prohibited demonstrations and marches for ”reasons of security” after recent attacks by an al-Qaeda affiliate in the country’s northern desert, Nouakchott Governor Mohamed Lemine Ould Moulaye Zeine said on Monday.
One of the protest organisers, Oumar Ould Yali, said the demonstrators ”refuse to renounce the right to march in the street to call for the return to constitutional order and of the legitimate president”.
Abdallahi was Mauritania’s first democratically elected president in more than two decades. The coup leader, Aziz, has accused him of corruption and being soft on terrorism.
But Abdallahi’s supporters say the allegations are false and being used by the junta to justify the coup.
Many in Mauritania had hoped Abdallahi’s 2007 election would end the pattern of political upheaval in the West African country, which has been wracked by more than 10 coups or attempted coups since its 1960 independence from France.
The junta has said a transitional government will lead Mauritania until new elections can be held, but no voting date has been set. — Sapa-AP