page_title: 2019–20 Algerian protests
section_title: Week 1: 22–28 February
hierarchical_section_title: 2019–20 Algerian protests / Timeline / Week 1: 22–28 February
caption_attribution_description: English: Départ de la première marche spontanée de vendredi à Alger, place des Martyrs
context_page_description: The 2019–20 Algerian protests, also called Revolution of Smiles or Hirak Movement, began on 16 February 2019, six days after Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his candidacy for a fifth presidential term in a signed statement. These protests, without precedent since the Algerian Civil War, were peaceful and led the military to insist on Bouteflika's immediate resignation, which took place on 2 April 2019. By early May, a significant number of power-brokers close to the deposed administration, including the former president's younger brother Saïd, had been arrested.
  The rising tensions within the Algerian regime can be traced back to the beginning of Bouteflika's rule which has been characterized by the state's monopoly on natural resources revenues used to finance the government's clientelist system and ensure its stability. The major demonstrations have taken place in the largest urban centers of Algeria from February to December 2019. Due to their significant scale, the protests attracted international media coverage and provoked reactions from several heads of states and scholarly figures.
context_section_description: Protests were organized via social media in major and mid-sized cities on 22 February. Those in Algiers—where street protests had been illegal since a demonstration on 14 June 2001, "when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from Kabylie converged on the capital"—were the biggest in nearly 18 years. Smaller protests, with slogans like "There is no president, there's a poster," had been taking place in Algiers since 11 February. On 22 February, the portrait of the President was torn down from the landmark central post office. There are no official government numbers published, but one expert put the number of demonstrators at 800,000 on 22 February 2019.
  Regularly hospitalized for "periodic medical examinations", Abdelaziz Bouteflika was admitted to the University Hospital of Geneva (Switzerland) on 24 February 2019.
  Another large-scale demonstration took place on 24 February at the call of the Mouwatana movement ("citizenship"), On 28 February, a dozen journalists were arrested during protests against press censorship.
caption: 22 February 2019 in Algiers
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