Demonstration in al-Azhar, Damascus and Manama on Palestinian Intifada anniversary
Regional-Palestine, Politics, 9/28/2002

Thousands of Egyptians demonstrated on Friday at al-Azhar Mosque in support of the Palestinian Intifada, while hundreds of Syrian and Arab intellectuals and artists in Damascus took part in a silent demonstration in support of the Intifada on the occasion of its launching anniversary, September 28.

Al-Azhar witnessed a massive demonstration following Friday's prayer, attended by thousands of men who chanted slogans in which they stressed their rejection and "condemnation of the massacres committed against the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces."

The demonstrators stressed their rejection of the American bias to Israel, calling for withstanding the US attempts to "impose its hegemony on the world and control the Arab oil fields."

The demonstrators also called for extending a message to the peoples of the Arab and Islamic worlds on the need of supporting the Iraqi and Palestinian people and called on the Palestinians to resist the occupation by all means including "the martyrdom operations." The demonstrators denounced that the Israeli forces attacked Gaza and is liquidating the Palestinian resistance fighters.

During his Friday's sermon, al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Tantawi called on all Muslim to unify their ranks behind the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples.

In Damascus hundreds of artists and intellectuals took the streets from al-Marjah square and walked for five kilometers while rising a picture for the secretary general of the Lebanese Hizbullah Party Sheikh Hassan Nasrullah and the party's flags and banners on which written "until when? the Arab silence!" and "death for Sharon, the killer of Children " and "stop American terrorism."

The renowned Syrian artist Dureid Lahham, who is UNICEF's good will ambassador, said "we are ashamed of this small move ( the demonstration) compared to the resistance movement in Palestine."

Most of the participants in the demonstration were wearing white cotton T-shirts on which was written "the Palestinian children have the right to life" and "boycott the American goods." The demonstration was also attended by activists of several nationalities including seven German tourists and several Iranians. A British female student with her brother at Damascus university took part in the demonstration and raised a slogan "do not fight in our own name," in remarks to the British alliance with the US against Iraq.

A Palestinian demonstration was organized on Friday in Khan al-Sheikh camp for the Palestinian refugees, 25 kilometers to the southern west of Damascus and hundreds of Palestinian walked towards the Syrian liberated city of al-Quneitra calling for supporting the Palestinian Intifada. They were carrying Palestinian and Syrian flags.

In Manama, Bahrain, some 1000 persons took part in a solidarity demonstration with the Palestinians. The demonstration started following Friday's prayer from "Raas al-Rumman" mosque to the east of the capital, and marched for two kilometers during which the demonstrator denounced the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, besieging of the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The demonstrations which was dispersed peacefully was organized by the Jerusalem support committee of the "Islamic Awareness society."

Previous Stories:
  Kuwait: one million signatures on a request to investigate Israeli crimes   (9/27/2002)
  Israel killed 1897 Palestinians since the beginning of the Intifada   (9/27/2002)
  Quartet outlines three-phase roadmap for final settlement of Palestinian Israeli issue by 2005   (9/18/2002)
  Al-Ayam: Egyptian, Jordanian trainers for the Palestinian security forces   (8/21/2002)
  Annan joins the list ignoring Arafat   (8/9/2002)

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