Posted on 04/02/2002 5:07:09 PM PST by vannrox
02-04-2002 CAIRO (AFP) - Egyptian police clashed violently with student demonstrators for a second day, as people across the Arab world voiced more outrage at Israel's military campaign against the Palestinians. Police said an officer and seven other members of the security forces, as well as nine of the protestors, were injured. All of them were receiving treatment for moderate injuries in Cairo hospitals, they said. Police said they first moved in when the protestors prepared to march on the Israeli embassy which is just 200 meters (yards) away from the campus. Police reinforcements were also deployed to monitor anti-Israeli rallies elsewhere in Cairo and in other Egyptian cities, including a peaceful protest by some 6,000 students at Alexandria University in the Nile Delta. On Monday, at least five people were hurt among the estimated 20,000 who took part in a protest at Cairo University, the largest and most violent such protest to occur here since the Palestinian uprising erupted 18 months ago. Under emergency laws in force since Islamic militants assassinated president Anwar Sadat in 1981 for signing a peace treaty with Israel, protests are generally banned in Egypt, but they are tolerated on university campuses. In an unprecedented move in Jordan, six cabinet ministers took part in a massive demonstration organized by unions and opposition parties in support of the Palestinians. They marched battered by an icy downpour several miles (kilometres) from the headquarters of the professional unions association in the Shmeisani residential neighborhood to parliament in Abdali. Some 500 Palestinian refugee from camps south of the capital marched through major roads in the city and blocked traffic to highlight Arafat's plight and denounced the "barbarian Sharon" referring to Israeli leader Ariel Sharon who has offered the Palestinian a "one-way ticket" out of the West Bank. "We are a million martyrs to march on Jerusalem," they chanted, referring to Arafat's calls for "a million marytrs" to take the holy city. Their rally was led by young men clothed head-to-toe in white and with mock explosive belts around their bodies -- symbolizing their willingness to become suicide bombers. There were similar smaller demonstrations across the country, including one by 300 professional women who handed a local UN office an open letter denouncing "the Israeli aggression against the cities and the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure." More than 2,000 Bahraini students protested Israel's "war of extermination" against the Palestinians and demanded the US embassy in Manama be closed. The students, who protested on Bahrain University campus, chanted slogans hostile to the United States and demanded that the Gulf state's king shut down the US diplomatic mission, according to witnesses. Egyptian police clash with students as Arab world rages against Israel
Seventeen people were injured as police broke up an illegal rally by some 500 students outside Cairo University to call for the country to break off diplomatic ties with Israel and expel its ambassador.
Another 8,000 students gathered peacefully inside the university campus, but the protest outside twice turned violent after they burned the Israeli flag and chanted "Death to America, Death to Israel."
The second clash was more violent than the first, as protestors pelted the police with stones and they retaliated with clubs, water cannons and tear gas grenades, an AFP photographer said.
The clashes also occurred as it was revealed the Palestinians had requested a meeting of Arab foreign ministers here Wednesday to discuss the crisis and the siege of their leader Yasser Arafat, whom the Israeli military has trapped in the West Bank following a series of grisly suicide bombings.
Organizers of the march estimated the crowd at 80,000 people, who carried banners denouncing Israel's "criminal" offensive against the Palestinian territories and the five-day siege of Arafat.
"We are six ministers taking part in this march of solidarity with the Palestinian people," Information Minister Mohammed Adwan told AFP as he and his colleagues joined tens of thousands in the streets of Amman.
The protesters called for the closure of the Israeli embassy and urged the authorities to "expel the wretch", in reference to ambassador David Dadonn.
In Lebanon, there was a fifth straight day of demonstrations, as more than 1,000 students marched through the streets of Beirut carrying Palestinian and national flags, as well as portraits of Arafat.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, hundreds of people took to the streets of Oman's capital Muscat to protest the "atrocities committed by Israeli occupation forces" against the Palestinians, according to the official ONA news agency.
Note: this topic is from 4/02/2002. Thanks vannrox.
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