Gaza Freedom demo & Kistnasamy encircled by Egyptian Army

31.12.2009

Ragini Kistnasamy, LALIT member in Egypt for the Gaza Freedom March has just phoned. It is 2 o'clock on 31 Dec, 09. She is participating in a demonstration in front of the Egypt Museum in Cairo, and has been for some 2 hours. She is right now in a public park where, with 600 other demonstrators, they are completely encircled by the Egyptian army and police. No-one can enter or leave the Park. There are another 100 demonstrators across the road from the Park. Others are demonstrating outside their hotels, because they have been barricaded in by the police and army. Ragini Kistnasamy left her hotel by saying she was going to view the pyramids, and getting into a taxi. Then she went to the demonstration.

The demand is still for everyone who has come for the Gaza Freedom March to get the right to go through the crossing into Gaza. Radio Canada is reporting, via Hamas, that 84 of the Gaza Freedom March delegation have arrived by bus in Gaza. Others, including Ragini Kistnasamy and the organizers, refused to go in, unless all were allowed in. This decision was taken in part in order to keep the whole movement together, in part because the hosts had said that they preferred the movement to stay whole, and also in concern for repression by the Egyptian State on those who were not in the 100 chosen.