TEHRAN Security forces set up roadblocks around the Algerian capital on Wednesday to stop anti-government activists from staging a protest march.

Paramilitary gendarmes in full riot gear, backed by armored vehicles, manned checkpoints on the four-lane motorway from Algiers to Tizi Ouzou, the main city in Berber-speaking Kabylie, 90 km (55 miles) to the east, a Reuters report quoted witnesses as saying.

As with a previous attempt a month ago, the security cordon was likely to thwart the pro-democracy demonstration and sit-ins planned in central Algiers. Gendarmes stopped and searched all vehicles with license plates from Kabylie, a restive region where two months of violent street clashes and popular unrest began in April after the death of a youth shot by a gendarme while in custody.

In Algiers, riot police were deployed with water cannon vehicles at main intersections and around the July 5 Olympic Stadium where marchers were originally set to gather at noon.

The military-backed government banned demonstrations in the capital in June at the height of an unprecedented popular revolt that has left at least 55 protesters killed, shot dead by security forces mainly in Kabylie, and 2,000 others wounded.

Algerian activists put the death toll at over 100.

At Tidjelabine, 30 km (20 miles) from Algiers, gendarmes fired tear gas canisters to push back hundreds of youths trying to force their way through the checkpoint.

With gendarmes urging them to disperse and go home, up to 2,000 protesters then staged a sit-in on both sides of the motorway. "This is my country, I'm going to stay here", one youth said while the crowd chanted "Long Live Algeria Without the Generals," a reference to the opaque military establishment widely considered to be running the country behind the scenes.

Wearing black headbands in sign of mourning, protesters chanted "Oulach S'mah" (no forgiveness) in the Berber dialect, Tamazight.

Residents said other roadblocks were set up in Naciria, 50 km (30 miles) from Algiers, and outside another main city in Kabylie, Bouira, 110 km (70 miles) from the capital.

The Algerians have demands special social and economic reforms and the withdrawal from the region of gendarmes, whose "shoot-to-kill" attitude was officially denounced in a probe of the recent crackdown.

The revolt was fuelled by deep-rooted grievances over unemployment, housing shortages, police abuses, perceived widespread corruption and the belief that the vast North African country's oil-related wealth is concentrated in a few hands.