Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said that only defeat at the ballot box will make him quit.
‘If they want me to quit, I will only leave through the ballot box,’ Saleh told a news conference.
‘The opposition are raising the level of their demands, some of which are illicit,’ the Yemeni leader said.
Opposition MPs, who vowed to take to the streets in a statement issued yesterday, joined students who have been protesting for the past nine days.
Security forces surrounded the protesters as they gathered in a nearby square carrying banners declaring: ‘People want change’, ‘People want to overthrow the regime’ and ‘Leave’.
The Common Forum, an alliance of parliamentary opposition groups urged all of its parties yesterday to ‘join the protesting youths... in their demonstrations against oppression, tyranny and corruption,’ in a statement received by AFP.
Farther south, in Aden, Yemeni police today shot dead a protester and wounded four others, witnesses and medics told AFP.
Ali al-Khalaqi died of his wounds at a hospital in Aden. One of the four others receiving treatment is seriously wounded, medics told AFP.
Meanwhile, Yemeni clerics issued a statement today prohibiting the use of force against protesters, which they described as a ‘crime,’ and calling for a ban on arbitrary arrest and torture.
‘Any act of beating or killing of protesters is a deliberate crime,’ said the association of Yemeni clerics headed by Sheikh Abdul Majid Zindani.
The clerics demanded a ban on ‘arbitrary arrest and (all forms of) torture’ and said that pro-government rallies should be held away from protest demonstrations to avoid the deadly clashes of recent days.
