Residents of the Kemin district of the northern Chui Province formed on 12 November a committee to protect the former interior minister, Temirbek Akmataliev. President Askar Akayev dismissed him last May saying he was one of the officials responsible for the Aksy bloodshed. However, Akayev appointed him later deputy head of the presidential staff and opposition demands to bring him to justice among some other officials. Before January 2002, Akmataliev was the finance minister. Police opened fire at a protest demonstration in the southern Aksy district last March, killing five people.