Statement by representatives of the majority of the tribes of North and South Sinai, regarding the Egyptian Revolution. They support the revolution and pledge to protect the eastern borders of Egypt, calling for prosecuting the police officials involved in murdering protesting, the immediate lifting of the emergency law and asserting their ownership of the Sinai lands. The Bedouin representatives consisted of around 350 mainly young Bedouin men from different tribes and met at Wadi Watir near the city of Nuweiba in South Sinai. They will be electing next week the delegation which will represent them in any negotiations with the government.

The Bedouins in Sinai plan to arrange a conference on Monday to demand justice from authorities for the victims of recent violent clashes between tribes and security forces near the Egypt-Israeli border.

According to sources in the area, heads of the tribes met Friday to decide on the representatives who will attend on behalf of the five main Bedouin tribes in North Sinai.

The venue for the conference is being kept under wraps for security reasons, as the tribes are reticent to announce it after a previous conference was scuppered before it took place.

According to Sinai-based journalist and activist Mostafa Singer, local officials have been initiating contact with the tribes to calm things down but the Bedouin response has been one of mistrust as the prevalent feeling was that the officials were merely paying lip service as opposed to making concrete offers.

“The Bedouin are demanding full justice for their clansmen who were killed, and the mood today is ‘if the authorities don’t give it to us we will take it with our own hands,'” he said.

A policeman was shot as a checkpoint in Sinai Thursday in the latest act of violence between Bedouins and security forces which was sparked by the death of a Bedouin on Monday.

Sinai’s Bedouins were angered by the death of a member of the Tarabeen tribe on Monday after he turned to drive away from a police checkpoint. His companion in the vehicle is currently being held in Al-Arish hospital as he receives treatment.

The shootings Monday triggered a mass wave of violent protest by Bedouins all along the border, as they burnt tires and discharged gunshots. Twelve people were injured in the immediate fallout, including four policemen.

In two separate incidents, one near Rafah and another further south, angry Bedouins briefly kidnapped 25 and then 51 policemen in checkpoints along 15 km of the border before releasing them, the latest batch being released at dawn on Wednesday.

Heightened security in North Sinai led to the delay of a proposed conference of Bedouin tribes in which they planned to make demands from the Egyptian government.
Earlier on Friday, hundreds of Bedouins had driven through towns between Rafah and Sheikh Zowayed to announce the conference, which was scheduled to take place on Saturday.
Although it did take place, many of the representatives were unable to attend due to the closure of all the roads leading to Irsal, Shabana south of Rafah where the meeting was held.
Those who managed to attend released a statement declaring that another conference will be held on Aug. 25 where the Bedouins will make a list of demands.
Among these demands is the release of Bedouins incarcerated since a spate of terror attacks in tourist resorts across Southern Sinai in 2006.
Demands also include reaching an agreement for land ownership with the government and benefits from increased investment in Sinai.
The attendees also called for being given employment priority in projects in the area and that companies investing in Sinai offer services to the people in the vicinity.
“The government is not concerned with the simple people of Sinai and is more interested in the businessmen,” journalist and activist Mustapha Singer told Daily News Egypt.

Hundreds of Sinai Bedouins protested on Wednesday against the detention of one of their tribesmen, burning tires and blocking roads on the peninsula, a security official said.
“Hundreds of Bedouins from north Sinai have blocked roads in the Mahdia area near the Israeli border to protest against the detention of one Bedouin,” the official told AFP, adding that they were setting tires ablaze.
The man, Mahmoud Hassan Al-Menei, 40, was held on Tuesday without charge.

BY THIS time next year, Egyptians will no longer be living under an official state of emergency, the government has promised. The news can only be welcome. Except for a few brief interludes, “emergency” laws have been in force ever since the 1952 coup that replaced the constitutional monarchy of King Farouk with an authoritarian republic. Under Hosni Mubarak, who assumed Egypt’s presidency in 1981, activists have frequently charged police with abusing such laws to practise arbitrary arrest and torture.
But during this unusually hot summer, Egyptians may rightly wonder which emergency their government is talking about. For some, such as thousands of Bedouin in northern Sinai who have mounted sit-ins to protest against mass crackdowns on terrorist suspects, police brutality is indeed a priority. Yet a growing number of Egyptians seem unusually incensed about a range of other troubles.
Citizens in five of the country’s 26 governorates, for instance, have been suffering a dire shortage of drinking water. Some villagers have blocked roads and demonstrated outside government offices in what the opposition press has dubbed a “revolution of the thirsty”. Others are angry about the failure of wages to keep up with inflation. Labour activists have documented some 350 protests this year, including strikes by state-employed teachers, postmen and train drivers. This number is not large in a country of 75m, but as public-sector workers have traditionally been mobilized behind the ruling party independent labor action is a disturbing novelty.
With wages for unskilled workers barely averaging $75 a month, with many commodities that were once subsidised by the state now being sold at market prices and with state health and education now only nominally free, Egyptians feel squeezed. Inflation officially peaked at 12% last spring, and has now declined. But independent economists note that food prices have risen 25% since last August and that queues for bread, a commodity that remains subsidised, have lengthened ominously as pinched consumers revert to relying on the staple food.

At least 700 Egyptian Bedouins have protested over fears the Egyptian government plans to remove their houses from an area along the border with the Gaza Strip.
Hundreds of police surrounded the Sinai desert Bedouins as they set several tyres ablaze in the Massura area, on the main road between Rafah and the nearby city of Al-Arish in Egypt.
The demonstrations followed a visit two days earlier by local officials who surveyed land and houses near the border.
This prompted fears among Bedouins that an anti-smuggling measure, that has not been implemented to date, could be used to remove their homes.