By Cliff Hanley
After the Viva Palestina 3 Convoy members were forced to leave Gaza after only 24 hours, to buy visas clearing them to be held illegally in Cairo Airport, missing their pre-booked flights home and being blackmailed into buying new Egyptair flights, one of our team leaders gave this resume of the restrictions imposed on the captives, and of their likely prospects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F7DpbjvCo
My most recent memories of the 3rd siege-lifting Convoy to Gaza are of incarceration.
Having forced the convoy members to leave Gaza prematurely, the Egyptian Authorities made us pay for yet another Entry Visa, our second in one week. But this was only to allow us to be taken straight, not to hotels in Cairo to await our booked flights home; it was to Cairo Airport, where we were held, in an act of state piracy, as prisoners, our movements curtailed to the extent of (at first) denying access to food and water.
Although we were later assured that we could book flights home on airlines of choice, as we were denied access to all but the offices of Egyptair, this was not a practicable option. We were being blackmailed into using Egypt's own airline to leave the country at our own considerable expense as deportees, many of us having cancelled two consecutive flights home because of the changes to our schedule being forced on us.
If we had not been able to use our mobile phones and laptop computers to find alternatives, most of us would still be, as I write on Monday 11th, prisoners in Cairo. Two of our number made a principled stand and demanded the right to be able to travel home on their earlier booked flights. They are still in the airport, and are not the only ones we left behind.
Although we were made very much aware of how much the people of Egypt supported us and the beleagured people of Palestine, we have to admit that their president, Mr Mubarak, remains in power only by kow-towing to the US/UK/Israeli axis.
Our all-too brief time in Gaza was fired by the overwhelming hospitality and inspiring activity, intellectual, artistic and social, of the Gazans. Throughout the long journey south we were energised by the welcomes and support, from individuals in the street to ministerial levels,in the countries through which we passed, - difficult to single out the best of so many positive experiences, but especially Turkey, which turned into a great big love-in. This is not the end of our connection with Gaza: many of us will be keeping in regular touch with the people we were able to meet. And we hope one day soon to be able to wecome them to our country, too, as free people.
http://hanleyexpress.blogspot.com/
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