EGYPTIAN AND INTERNATIONALS PROTEST AT GATEWAY TO SINAI

STATE OF INSECURITY

Cairo 11/12/2004

Two hundred Egyptian activists and fifty from Europe were prevented from reaching Egyptian Rafah by security forces at Bahlouza, the entry to North Sinai yesterday. The group was accompanying hundreds of tons of relief supplies for the people of Rafah collected by the Egyptian Popular committee in support of the Palestinian Intifada. While the food and blankets were allowed to reach the border at Rafah, the solidarity demonstration planed for Rafah was held in the middle of the desert underneath the welcome arch of North Sinai.

Dozens of men from the Egyptian security police blocked the path of the demonstrators who attempted to break through and make their way towards Rafah, on foot if necessary, a distance of 100km. In a heated struggle with the security forces, one protestor collapsed, one woman was kicked in the stomach and several were hit with batons. The demonstrators showed restraint and exclaimed that they were peacefully protesting and demanding their right to continue to Rafah to meet Palestinain organisers from the other side of the border.

In addition six activists from the Egyptian Popular Commitee in El- Arish were detained on their way to meet the main convoy and a camera was snatched from an Al-Jazera television crew. After a standoff of several hours, during which the protestors refused to leave and insisted on the right to continue to Rafah, it became clear that orders from Cairo would prevent them passing. Demands were made for the six from El-Arish be released and the camera and film be returned. These demands were met by the security authorities, with the exception of the Al-Jazera tape, and the buses returned to Egypt.

The question as to why a peaceful convoy of men and women, young and old, worker and professional, religious and secular, Egyptian and foreign should be met with such resistance from the Egyptian authorities does not have a simple answer. The answer given on the scene was "security". Whose exactly? Angry protestors asked the ranks of green clad police before them whay they were performing the same job as the Israelis and appeals were made in the name of Egyptian and Arab fraternity. To no avail.

The security at stake is of course the security of the Egyptian state which is facing ever rumbling discontent that is perhaps growing. The Egyptian role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is under popular scrutiny after the recent killing of three Egyptian soldiers at the border, the release of Israeli spy Azzam Azzam, the Israeli plan for unilateral disengagement from Gaza with Egypt's likely role as Israeli security proxy in Gaza and the recent bombings of tourist resorts in Sinai. Beyond the Palestinian dimension the questions of reform and transfer of power after current president Hosni Mubarak leaves the scene are also provoking debate which the regime may not deem healthily in its interests.

The attacks in Sinai have engendered panic in the security forces, who have been carrying out mass arrests, detention and torture in Sinai, particularly El-Arish where thousands of people are in detention camps, in excesses reminiscent of the worst days of the Gamaat Al-Islamiyyah.

This week in Cairo sees demonstrations against the inheritance of power (in reference to the president's son Gamal succeeding his father) and against the signing of the agreement on Qualified Industrial Zones with America (these require Israeli inputs to Egyptian industry to gain priviliged access to the American market). Will these demonsrations face the full power of the Egyptian security apparatus in the absence of an international presence?