5th update 27/12/09

Dear friends,

Marie and I are writing from Cairo, where the Egyptian police have been doing everything to stop us from gathering, protesting and getting to Gaza.

We were scheduled to leave today, yet the bus company that we had hired to take us were shut down and are now out of business due to the government's interference.

There are 1300 of us here and the consensus is that we stay here united in Cairo to put pressure on the UN, all the respective embassies and ultimately the Egyptian government.

Some smaller individual groups have moved on to Al Arish, which is about an hour away from the Raffah border, but we have not heard much from there. From the last we did hear, 30 were put under hotel arrest and are being followed by police.

All of us marchers have been engaging in protest activities in Cairo today.

We met up at the October 6th bridge and attempted to hang and distribute commemorative cards. These were all either ripped off or taken away by the police, who shooed us away from the bridge.

Later in the afternoon we had planned to hire Felucca boats on the Nile to place candles in float boats on the river. Marie, Kat and our group were actually on the boat ready to take off when about 40 policemen came and shut down the boat hiring place.

However, ALL the delegates had come to the Nile and we had an impromptu, and successful, protest. There was a lot of media coverage and we managed to march and sing along the Nile passing the Four Seasons Hotel as well as many others. All marchers were holding a candle to commemorate those who died during the siege in January.

Finally, in the evening we gathered to meet other delegate groups and discuss possible opportunities. Political activist and politician Walden Bello came to speak, he is part of the march. Tomorrow morning we are all going to the main bus station to see whether we can board buses that will take us to Al Arish.

Marie and Kat are feeling frustrated and deflated... we are stuck in Cairo and sense the urge to demonstrate here but also try to attempt to get to Gaza. We are doing our best to create and have the biggest impact we can while we are here, so that the Freedom March can continue. There was talk of pressurising the embassies more and also the UN by doing sleep-outs and hunger strikes.

It's a great atmosphere, everyone is super friendly- especially the local and non police Egyptians. We have been meeting excellent people, who are motivated to do stuff. If only everybody could meet these kinds of people. Perhaps they would be inspired to change.

We really appreciate all of your support. We urge you to keep contacting politicians to put pressure on the Egyptian government to lift their ban on the March.

Marie and Katerina