New Zealanders Rally In Solidarity With Egyptian Uprising

Protests were held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch last weekend in solidarity with the uprising taking place in Egypt. In Christchurch about 100 people marched silently from Canterbury Museum to Cathedral square, where a rally took place with chanting of “From the Nile to the sea, Egypt, Egypt will be free!” and “Hey hey, ho ho, dictatorship has got to go!” as well as chants, songs and prayers in Arabic. Many of the protesters dressed in the colours of the Egyptian flag, red, white and black. The Christchurch demonstration was organised by Egyptian Association of Canterbury, there are about 200 Egyptian families living in Christchurch. Billy Hania, of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign and Socialist Aotearoa, took the following video of the Auckland march:

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Joe Carolyn, one of the main organisers of the Auckland rally told bFM that many people in the west have been appalled at how our governments have treated people in the middle east; “The democratic revolution that's spreading through the Arab world is an immense source of hope and inspiration, not only for people in Arab countries but for people throughout the world”.

In Wellington, the capital, protesters marched to the Egyptian embassy.

New Zealand Prime Minster John Key even announced his support for the Egyptian regime on the Breakfast news program, something few other world leaders have done, he stated that “Egypt has been one of the few Arab nations, that has recognised Israel, in fact the only one”. New Zealand has troops stationed in the desert of the Sinai peninsula in Egypt as part of a little-known but strategically significant army called the Multinational Force and Observers. The role of these troops is to prevent movement of people and goods across the Rafah border, which allows Israel to maintain its siege of the Gaza strip and isolate Gaza from the outside world.