Sanaa — Yemeni women protested in Sanaa and other cities against President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Saturday, a day after he called for an end to men and women joining together in anti-regime protests.
"Sit-in, sit-in, until the regime falls," chanted about 1,000 black-clad women who marched from the square at Sanaa University — the epicentre of demonstrations in the capital — to the prosecutor's office.
They marched to lodge a complaint against Saleh, who has since January faced protests calling for his departure.
Playing to Yemeni religious sensitivities, Saleh on Friday called for an end to joint anti-regime protests, saying it was "contrary to the Sharia" Islamic law.
In the complaint, the women called for the "restoration of their reputation from the injury and the affront brought by Ali Abdullah Saleh's speech," one of the protesters who submitted the complaint told journalists.
Prosecutor General Abdullah al-Olafi has ordered an investigation into the complaint, she said.
Before the start of protests, Saleh "defended women's rights, arguing that they were equal with men to the point of proposing the allocation of 41 seats in parliament for women," compared to one woman currently, an activist, Um al-Hassan, told AFP.
"But after women went out into the street to denounce him and denounce corruption, he calls for an end to mixing (of men and women at protests) and says that it is illicit," she said.
Women also held sit-ins in Taez and Ibb, cities south of Sanaa, and sent a letter to prosecutors calling for "the respect of women's rights" in Yemen, according to participants.
Women in impoverished, deeply tribal Yemen are obliged to wear veils in public, but are permitted to mix with men in public, especially at universities.
