http://husseini.org
In Cairo, Egypt --
Robert Naiman at Huffington Post rightly reports on the lack of coverage in the US media of the Gaza Freedom March.
What's even more remarkable is the lack of coverage in the Arab media, most notably Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera English. They are covering Gaza in many respects, they are covering the Viva Palestina effort, which is in the Jordan port of Aqaba.
But the Gaza Freedom March is a separate effort now in Cairo, a city of millions. The people of Cairo here do not know about over 1,000 people from over 40 countries who are in their midst the last 48 hours trying to get into Gaza. The state run media have virtually totally blocked it out. There is in effect a farcical, tragic misunderstanding going on, where people in Cairo think they know about efforts to get into Gaza, but not the one here, the one that is protesting, the one that they conceivably could join with in protest, should they choose to brave the state "security" system.
When the Gaza Freedom March participants have held protests, they are immediately penned in and any interaction with passerbyers is totally minimized.
The net effect of Al-Jazeera and other such coverage is total disempowerment -- the Egyptian people can watch efforts in other places, but should not be informed about what is happening right here.
The most "comprehensive" piece on Al Jazeera I could find about the Gaza Freedom March now in the largest Arab city led by talking about the Viva Palestina effort and then gave the Egyptian government spin on the whole affair in a totally subdued manner:
Meanwhile, at least 300 French participants of the Gaza Freedom March spent the night camped out in front of their embassy in Cairo, bringing a major road in the Egyptian capital to a halt as riot police wielding plexiglass shields surrounded them.
Hossam Zaki, an Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman, accused the French protesters of lying and trying to embarrass Egypt. "They claimed they had aid to carry to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which is a lie," the MENA news agency quoted Zaki as saying. "They want media exposure and to pressure and embarrass Egypt," he said. On Sunday, police briefly detained 38 international participants in the Sinai town of El-Arish, organisers said. "At noon (1000 GMT) on December 27, Egyptian security forces detained a group of 30 activists in their hotel in El-Arish as they prepared to leave for Gaza, placing them under house arrest. "Another group of eight people, including American, British, Spanish, Japanese and Greek citizens, were detained at the bus station of El-Arish in the afternoon of December 27," they said.
On Sunday, Egyptian police also stopped some 200 protesters from renting boats on the Nile to hold a procession to commemorate those who died in the Gaza war. On December 31, participants are hoping to join Palestinians "in a non-violent march from northern Gaza to the Erez-Israeli border," the organisers said.