No more walls!
A FEW HUNDRED Egyptians held a demonstration against the Israeli separation wall in Tahrir Square on Monday. The demonstration, prevented by riot-police from marching into the square's many branching streets, coincided with the opening in The Hague of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) oral hearings on the legality of Israel's construction of a separation wall in the West Bank. Demonstrators chanted anti-Israel and anti-US slogans and voiced harsh criticism of Arab regimes. "Egyptians from all walks of life are against the wall!" and "The only lesson for the occupied land is resistance!" they cried.
Protesters representing various political groups also chanted slogans against the Geneva Accords, which they believe, subvert the Palestinians' right of return. Several groups and political parties, including the left-wing opposition Tagammu Party, the Nasserist Party, the Egyptian Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada, in addition to human rights groups and syndicate committees, organised the demonstration.
Support for the Iraqi and Palestinian resistance featured prominently in the demonstration that ended when a delegation representing the organisers marched to the nearby Arab League headquarters voicing objection to the wall and urging Arab governments to stand firm in defence of the rights of the Palestinian people.
Opposition to the wall extended to the other side of town when thousands of students in Al-Azhar University held a large demonstration against the wall which cuts through 50 per cent of the West Bank, effectively annulling the 1967 "green line" and annexing more than half of the occupied Palestinian territories. Because the 700-kilometre-long barrier is constructed on occupied land, legal experts say it blatantly violates international and humanitarian law as it also cuts off Palestinian towns and families from each other.
Former Muslim Brotherhood MP Essam El-Eryan, who participated in the Tahrir Square demonstration, expressed satisfaction with the protest despite its small size. "It represents the shades of the political spectrum and symbolically delivers the message we are all here to voice," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.
