Tag: anti-imperialism

A Statement from the Egyptian Popular Committee:

The popular committee in support of Palestine people has organized a popular convoy yesterday, the 9th of January headed to Rafah to demand the opening of the borders for good, and to protest against the incompetence of the Egyptian government and the unreasonable reasons it gave on closing the borders in front of such an inhuman tragedy that’s created by the Zionist entity against Gaza’s citizens.
The convoy, which included 100 supporter–students, lawyers, journalists and foreigners, with various political believes but were united under one roof–moved at 8:30 am in front of the press syndicate. The summary of the convoy’s experience, which returned at 10 pm without even setting a foot in AL-Areesh, was that all the check points in Egypt – at the Ismailia gates, before El-Salam’s bridge, El -Antara, Baloza, bier el Abd and at last Al- Arish- are all borders that shuts down in front of any voice that tries to support Gaza.
In fact, none of those check points, took any clear decision on whether the convoy should pass or not, but the decision came through telephone conversations held by the officials present there, with the state security.
It was then clear that “orders” of those in charge was just to delay the convoy as much as possible until the proper deterrence and repression was to be ready and prepared. And that was what happened, instead of arriving to Al-Arish in 5 hours, it arrived after dark, that’s 10 hours from the time it departed. Its important to point out that convoy has exerted some pressure to avoid such planned attempts of delay by threatening to leave the buses and continue walking to Rafah, and by sitting down on the roads blocking it, preventing any cars or trucks to move, chanting for Gaza and Palestine.
Such script has been repeated at the Ismailia gate, the point before EL- Salam bridge, EL-Antara and Baloza. But what followed that was different. At the Baloza checkpoint, an officer declared frankly that the state security would be waiting for us at Beir Abd’s checkpoint, which is about 60 km before AL-Arish. And he was right, at Beir Abd the officials insisted that the media crew of “el Ashera Masa’an” program which is part of the Dream and the BBC Arabia Channels, had to leave claiming that they don’t have what they called “Sinai permit”. Its then that their scam became very clear to everyone, it was to single the convoy away from any media and reporters. And that actually happened.
Before the arrival of the convoy to AL-Arish’s check point by a few kilometers, awaiting for us there, were crowds of central security forces with their helmets and sticks, behind them, there was 7 deportation cars and about 8 officers, they took away the bus keys, then some of the central security soldiers gathered around the buses blocking the doors, preventing anyone from stepping down, the only sentence that was said was by one of the officers “turn and head back”, he said it to the drivers, nothing else was said, just like that, they did not ask for IDS, they did not ask for licenses , they did not ask where the bus were heading.
What the state and central security did yesterday with the popular convoy in support with Palestine was not different from what it did with the hundred thousand Egyptians who went out yesterday in various Egyptian governorates to protest against the official position of the government towards what’s happening to Palestine and Gaza and to demand the opening of the borders.
Popular Committee in Support of Palestinian People
10-1-2009