CAIRO: Fifteen Egyptian and foreign activists took part in a solidarity march for Gaza on Friday in the outskirts of Cairo. Carrying signs with messages like break the siege and support the resistance, they walked from Ezbet El-Nakhl to the end of the Marg metro line. One of the participants, Ahmed Droubi, described the march as part of a campaign to highlight the ongoing siege on Gaza. We wanted to make a statement that the campaign is continuing despite the crackdown of the paranoid authoritarian government on the first march, and on all sorts of activism in solidarity with Palestine, Droubi said. On Feb. 6 a group of 14 activists was stopped by police in Qaliubiya governorate after a similar march from Shubra Al-Kheima, North Cairo. All of them were eventually released except German-Egyptian activist Philip Rizk, who was detained by state security and interrogated for four days before being released. As part of the campaign a march previously took place in Spain, and more are being planned by activists in the US, according to the group in Egypt. The march in Cairo had been announced in advance on the website togaza.net. However, the date was changed from Saturday to Friday to avoid security intervention. This decision was taken out of concern for the participants of the last march, as most of them received visits by state security in their homes, Droubi said. Miriam, an AUC student from California, said she decided to join the march after hearing about it from other students. I worked with the Palestinian issue at home, but was reluctant to get involved here in Egypt because of security issues. But when I heard about this I decided to take the risk. I think it s great that all these people came together to do something, but it s sad that we have to keep it so small for security reasons, she said. She added that repression against Palestine-related protests and activism appeared more severe in Egypt than in other countries in the region, probably because of the sensitivity of the relationship be the Egyptian and the Israeli government. I traveled to other countries in the region during the recent attacks on Gaza, where peaceful demonstrations against the war took place without being broken up by the police, she said.
