Hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters poured onto the streets of major cities and towns across Yemen on August 12 keeping the pressure on the nation’s embattled president to step down. Protesters defied the scorching summer weather and the dawn-to-dusk fasting hours during the holy month of Ramadhan to renew their demands for Saleh’s resignation. They waved Yemeni flags and chanted anti-regime slogans at the rallies. Protest organiser Abdel Handi Al-Azazi said the high turnout for Friday’s demonstrations sent a clear message to Saleh that “you will not return to the country whatever you do.”
Al-Azazi said if Saleh does indeed return, the protest movement will push to have him put on trial. “We want to see Saleh in cage, to be the second Arab president to be tried by his own people,” he was reported as saying.