Thousands join protests in Egypt against Red Sea islands deal

Photo credit: Facebook / April 6 Movement

Thousands of Egyptians are estimated to have turned out for the protests on 15 April (MEE)

 Friday 15 April 2016

Thousands of protestors took to the streets of Cairo on Friday to picket the government's decision to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, with authorities moving in to disperse the crowds and reportedly firing tear gas and warning shots. 

Demonstrators chanted slogans from the 2011 Arab Spring uprising saying "people want the downfall of the regime," MEE contribuotor Belal Darder said. 

They also shouted: "Sisi - Mubarak... We don't want you, leave" in reference to long-time strongman Hosni Mubarak who was ousted during the 2011 revolution and current president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who in turn led a military coup against Mubarak's successor, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi.  

Though authorities accused the Brotherhood of organising the protests - which took place without official permission and hence violated Egypt's strict protest law - a variety of groups in fact called for the demonstrations, including the banned April 6 movement, several political parties and former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi. Such unity from the groups has been extremely rare in recent years. 

"Many Islamists were there among the protesters but yet they didn't mention Morsi's name in their chants at all and did not call for his presidential legitimacy [to be restored]," Darder said "They just participated and went with the crowds. 

"It definitely felt like the old days of the revolution with Islamists, liberals, the old and young, men and women together all taking over the streets."

Police had been on high alert over the protests overnight but, at first they did not stop people from congregating in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square where the 2011 revolution began. Later, the protesters were forcibly ejected and the square closed but many smaller protests marches were redirected to congregate on the steps of the city's Journalists' Syndicate. Police tried to block access but thousands of people were able to gather there for several hours, Darder said. 

Police riot vans then surrounded the protesters from all sides, but the rally remained largely peaceful for several hours before Egyptian police reportedly deployed tear gas and shot live ammunition into the air, activists said. 

Some 50 people have been arrested, activists and security sources told Reuters. 

Footage shot at the scene, and shared by prominent Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef, showed crowds of people chanting "Bread, Freedom and the Islands are Egyptian," an updated version of a chant that became widespread during the 2011 uprising. 

Some media said only several hundred people gathered but Darder said the crowd was definitely in the thousands.

"The youth of the revolution are still here," Abdelrahman Abdellatif, 29, an air conditioning engineer, at the Cairo protest told Reuters. "We are experiencing unprecedented fascism and dictatorship."

A small counter-protest in the coastal city of Alexandria saw activists hold up pictures of Egypt's President Sisi and King Salman of Saudi Arabia, as well as a banner reading: "The islands belong to Saudi Arabia".

Sisi earlier this week defended the controversial transfer, saying the islands were never the legal property of Egypt in the first place and that there were "security and political reasons" for giving Saudi Arabia sovereignty over the disputed islands. 

In expectation of major unrest on Friday, Egyptian police had "encircled" major routes into Cairo, the capital, overnight on Thursday in an attempt to shut down the rallies, with the interior ministry warning Egyptians not to get "carried away by tendentious calls for protests".

The interior ministry said increased security around the capital was to prevent what it called "infiltration of the terrorist group" - a reference to the banned Muslim Brotherhood which it said called the march.

The April 6 movement on Friday afternoon posted a photo which they said showed demonstrators running from tear gas fired during a protest that set out from the Muhandiseen district of Cairo following Friday prayers, aiming to join up with a bigger protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The April 6 Movement was formed in 2008 and mobilised to protest against then-president Hosni Mubarak.

Since then it has been designated a terrorist organisation by Sisi's government, and many of its leaders are in jail awaiting trial.

“Our right to this land is won by blood, not by documents and maps,” wrote organisers on the event’s Facebook page, which shows images of Egyptian soldiers in Tiran on 6 June 1967.

“We gave more than 100,000 martyrs in our wars with Israel to restore this land. [The Red Sea islands of] Tiran and Sanafir are our right, Egypt’s right, the right of our children and of our ancestors who were killed there. This right must be returned, even over our dead bodies.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, which is also banned in Egypt, said of the transfer "that no one has the right to abandon the property and resources of the Egyptian people in exchange for a fistful of dollars".

The move has been criticised by many as being illegal, and has provoked a storm of criticism on social media.