For the 48th consecutive week, thousands of people took to the streets of Algiers and other cities in the country on Friday, January 17, to demand a « regime change », as the future of the popular protest movement, the Hirak, is being debated in society.

As debate has been intense throughout the week in the country, following a column by writer Kamel Daoud who believed that the protest movement had failed, demonstrations took place in more than 25 of the country's 48 regions on Friday. In the capital, mobilization was lower, but demonstrators refuse to speak of failure.

In the march on Friday, a young woman held up a white placard that read that if the movement becomes structured, it is its death. Amine, a man in his thirties who has been demonstrating regularly for 11 months, believes that the criticism is unfair and that the movement is doing its best.

« Every Friday, we still see the same faces, it's true, but these are faces that have taken ownership of the streets. They are committed with their own weapon, which is peaceful protest. We have no other way to change this system, apart from that. We must not forget that the Hirak is not a political party. It is a new counter-power. »

Many demonstrators refuse to dialogue with the authorities and first demand the release of imprisoned demonstrators . This is the case with Hakim Addad, a member of the RAJ association, released provisionally after three months in detention.

« What appeasement when there are dozens of arrests every Friday ? We were released. First, of course, we should never have been arrested, but above all the Algerian prisons should have been emptied of every prisoner or female prisoner held for opinion in peaceful demonstrations. Appeasement is not 'I extend a hand to you' but 'I strike you with the other' », he says.

In the crowd, a group of families marches behind a banner. They denounce the continued provisional detention, without trial, of their children since last March.