Nine policemen and an expatriate Arab were injured in violent demonstrations in which some 3,000 members of a Saudi tribe tried to halt a public auction of land in the west of the kingdom, a local newspaper said on Thursday.
Al-Watan daily said the protest in the summer resort of Taif began on Wednesday when members of the tribe gathered in front of the sales office after evening prayers, holding placards claiming the land belonged to them as they had inherited it from their ancestors.
"When police tried to calm matters, the demonstrators broke the windows of the sales centre and broke in, trashing the office," the newspaper said, adding that the crowd then set buildings and three cars ablaze.
"Emergency forces fired in the air to try to disperse the crowd but were pelted with rocks. Nine security officers and a Yemeni resident were slightly wounded," it said. The newspaper said the civil defence extinguished the fire but did not report any arrests.
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