Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Egyptian Security Forces Detain Gaza Freedom Marchers in el-Arish and shut down Gaza Memorial in Cairo

Medea Benjamin medea@globalexchange.org 
 Egypt (18) 956-1919
Ann Wright microann@yahoo.com Egypt (19) 508-1493
Ziyaad Lunat Z.lunat@gmail.com 
 Roaming +351938349206


"As Gaza Freedom Marchers continue to push the Egyptian Government to allow us to leave Cairo for El Arish, they are beginning to push back. This morning at 7am Freedom Marchers met at the garage where we were expecting to board buses headed to El Arish. Instead we were met by a large group of soldiers who turned every bus and taxi away. Until we reached a large crowd, the authorities were forceful, pushing peaceful demonstrators and trying to prevent the filming of the situation.

Some of the Freedom Marchers then went to the French Embassy to offer to support to the 300 French delegates who had camped out at the embassy overnight following a dramatic die-in on the road that stopped traffic and lasted several hours......

"We're saddened that the Egyptian authorities have blocked our participants' freedom of movement and interfered with a peaceful commemoration of the dead," said Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK, one of the March's organizers.

Benjamin added that the Gaza Freedom March participants are continuing to urge the Egyptian government to allow them to proceed to Gaza. They visited the Arab League asking for support, various foreign embassies and the Presidential Palance to deliver an appeal to President Mubarak. They are calling their supporters around the world to contact Egyptian embassies and urge them to free the marchers and allow them to proceed to Gaza."

If you are in the US, please call 202-895-5400 and ask for Omar Youssef.
If you are elsewhere, you may find Egyptian consulate contact info here:
http://www.mfa.gov.eg/MFA_Portal/en-GB/mfa_websits/

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