At least 13 southern activists arrested in Yemen

Source: AFP, 15 /01/2011

ADEN, Yemen — At least 13 Southern Movement activists were arrested, including a regional chief, during a demonstration in the city of Mukallah on Friday, police and sources within the movement said.

A security official told AFP that Abdulmagid Saeed Wahdin, the secessionist movement's chief for Hadramawt province of which Mukallah is the main city, was detained for "inciting trouble."
At least another 12 activists were also arrested, said Faid Baoum, a Southern Movement official in charge of its youth wing.

Witnesses said the arrests were carried out as police dispersed a demonstration which followed the weekly Muslim prayers in the centre of Mukallah.

The gathering was called in protest at the death of a woman who was run over by a police vehicle in the city on Thursday during a demonstration to demand the release of militants.

South Yemen was independent from the 1967 British withdrawal from Aden until the region united with the north in 1990. The south seceded in 1994, sparking a short-lived civil war that ended with it being overrun by northern troops.