DRCongo police break up opposition demo

Police fired into the air in Kinshasa Monday to disperse more than 100 demonstrators, mainly supporters of Democratic Republic of Congo opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who were protesting alleged electoral irregularities. Using weapons and tear gas, they chased away the crowd that had gathered outside the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) in the upscale Gombe district to denounce alleged irregularities in the ongoing revision of the country's electoral lists. The activists, mainly members of veteran dissident Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), set a taxi cab and a police jeep ablaze, leaving one policeman seriously injured. The opposition said a dozen protesters had been arrested for questioning. UDPS Secretary General Jacquemin Shabani deplored the police crackdown. The incidents came a day after the CENI denied allegations by a local non-governmental organisation that electoral lists in the mineral-rich southeastern Katanga province included minors. Tshisekedi, a 79-year-old declared candidate in the November presidential election, had called for a boycott of the 2006 elections which he said were "tainted by irregularities". According to the CENI, more than 25 million people have registered to vote in the upcoming polls out of a total population of 62 million.