21 - 27 March 2002
Issue No.578
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 March 2002 Issue No.578 |
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'We are not afraid'
For a second week, student protests, expressing solidarity with Palestinians and opposition to Sharon's crimes, continued in most Egyptian universities. Khaled Dawoud reports
Anti-riot squads do not usually linger at the gates of the American University in Cairo (AUC) as they do at other universities. But this week, police laden trucks appeared outside the campus.
Students at AUC raised the Palestinian flag and displayed pictures of victims of Israel's violence (photos: Hany Abdel-Qawy, AUC Caravan)
Defying their stereotype as apathetic and Westernised, nearly 500 AUC students held an hour long sit-in at the university's Greek Campus on Monday. The demonstrators burned the Israeli flag and warned the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, that he would pay dearly for the horrific crimes his army had committed against Palestinian civilians.
Five trucks of anti-riot police positioned themselves prominently next to AUC, sending a clear warning to students that they would be prevented from marching outside the campus. The AUC security also banned students from gathering at the university's main campus, which faces the crowded Tahrir Square. Demonstrating students in the past gathered in front of the AUC president's office in the main building. The proximity to the university's wall has enabled them to swell their ranks by persuading passing pedestrians to join in the slogan-chanting. By any standard, a demonstration on Tahrir Square would be a crisis for the security forces.
According to Hossam El-Hamalawi, a graduate student, the rally was held to affirm solidarity with the Palestinians and with other university students who have held nearly daily protests against Israeli violence in Palestine. Over 200 Palestinians were killed in the past two weeks after Israeli troops raided refugee camps.
"Students in other Egyptian universities and in Arab countries are demonstrating to pressure our governments to give stronger support to the Palestinian people," said El- Hamalawi. He then led students in chanting, "We are not afraid. The stones in the hands [of Palestinians] have become Klashnikovs."
Other students spoke out against Israel's racist treatment of the Palestinian people and called for an end to occupation. Jumana Bishara, another graduate student, noted that the number of Palestinians killed over the past 18 months had reached 1,200, exactly the same number of people killed over the five years of the first Palestinian Intifada (1987-1992). She said the figure reflected the magnitude of violence used by Israel against Palestinians amid shameful world silence.
Orub El-Abed, a professor of Palestinian refugee studies at AUC, said student protests were important in attracting "attention to the acts of genocide committed by Israel against Palestinians."
Some American students at AUC were scheduled on Wednesday to hand a petition to David Welch, the US ambassador to Cairo. The letter stated their "dismay and revulsion at the barbarous effects of the [Israeli] military campaign against the Palestinians." The petition was also signed by other Americans working in Egypt.
Protests were held at other Egyptian universities this week. Most were led by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. At Cairo's Ain Shams University on Saturday, nearly 3,000 students protested against atrocities committed against Palestinians. "Egypt and Palestine are one," and "No peace without justice," were some of the slogans they shouted. Both American and Israeli flags were burned.
On Sunday, more than 1,500 students demonstrated against Israel at a branch of Tanta University in the Nile Delta town of Kafr Al-Sheikh. They demanded that Arab countries expel Israeli and US ambassadors and "open the doors [for their citizens] to take up arms to liberate the Palestinian lands."
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