Tens of thousands of protesters Sunday took to streets in nine Yemeni provinces to demonstrate against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s speech April 15, during which he called on the opposition to reject the mixing of men and women who were unrelated in protests, Xinhua reported.
Saleh’s comments have stirred up anger among women protesters in the country, who claimed Saleh’s words “stained their dignity”.
Following this, the women held protests along with male protesters in nine provinces including Sana’a, Al-Hudayda, Ibb, Taiz, Al-Bayda, Aden, Hadramout, Shabwa and Dhamar.
In Sana’a, the protesters moved from their sit-in square near Sana’a university to the office of the Public Prosecutor Abdullah al-Olufi to lodge a complaint against Saleh, a day after women protesters filed a lawsuit against the president.
But al-Olufi said he had no legal authority to investigate the case against Saleh, the official Saba news agency said Sunday.
Meanwhile, Saleh clarified to hundreds of women who rallied Sunday near the presidential palace in Sana’a that he did not mean any accusation against female protesters in his speech.
“I just called the opposition to reject the mixing of unrelated female and male protesters as it is forbidden by Islam,” he said, adding “I made that call to protect the Yemeni women from the mobs and anarchists who are using women only to gain votes in the elections.”