Shortly after the protest started
around the embassy building, I decided to go especially when the protest took a
violence turn and encouraged others who have a self discipline to join me, hopping to help in putting an end for the violence
around the embassy building. When I was there, rarely I've seen a foreign
journalist, because how dangerous the situation and the hate against the
western culture.
Therefore, I think it’s an important
help my friends to understand what was exactly happening there, since I was
able to be so close to talk to people protesting there and understand their motivations.
The following are my observations.
1-
The
1st protest day, there were people of different backgrounds
protesting around and so close to the American embassy, among them many
Egyptian Christians supporting the Muslims in their protest. At the end of the
day, some of the angry protestors took the American flag down. That’s when the
Egyptian police force rushed to the site and used the tear gas to push people
away from the embassy complex.
2-
In
Thru the violence around the embassy increased and I decided to join other
group encouraged by the mosque leader close to the embassy to stop the
violence, by standing between the police and the protestors, after convincing
the police to siege fire, but we have been attacked by the protestors, and the
Imam of the mosque was attacked as well.
3-
I
decided to get into the crowds in order to have a better understanding for their
backgrounds, when I noticed the following.
*The age of the
protestors range between 7 to 19 years.
*During the
time of pray, rarely any of them made to the mosque to pray, in another words,
they are not practicing Islam, that’s made me wondering, why they are
protesting? There were no more than 30 person engaged in the fight with the
police.
4-
I
left the site in Thru evening, when the police had a good control over the
situation securing not just the embassy complex but also the area around.
5-
In
Fri morning I was terrified when I reached the site for the following reasons
*The number of
the protestors increased much into a few hundreds and their age range from
7 to 19 years old.
*The police
force withdraw to secure only the embassy complex leaving 2 of the most
important hotels in the area unguarded and a high possibility of being attacked
and looted. In these hotels they were many tourists, their life would be in
danger.
*The protestors
started to prepare Molotov cocktail to use it against the police force.
6-
The
interesting thing, when I was trying to stop people from using the Molotov,
based on the many discussions I had with them, all of them focused on, their
target is the police force and nobody talked about the embassy as a target. In
my opinion the main motivation of the protestors was their hate to the police
as a result of long period when Egypt ruled by a very aggressive police rules.
7-
There
was no way to stop the riots peacefully, that’s when I decided to go to the
police camp to report about the riots, giving them info about their numbers,
locations, age structure, and the possibility of attacking the 2 hotels near
the embassy. It was my 1st time to report against protestors, but
they were no other way to secure the area and I’m glad I did.
8-
The
police force in the evening launched a counterattack arresting many of them
with causing minor damage and injuries, putting an end for a street fights held
for 3 days, launched by irresponsible very young people, motivated by their hate
to the police.
9-
There’s
another factor motivating the protestors, which is media, movies and videogames
with lots of violence as a great favor among the Egyptian’s teens.
10-
In
Sat, I paid a visit to the embassy area, and I found out as if nothing happened
there. There’s no single person around, everything is very normal, the streets
have been cleaned and life is going, make it hard to believe they were street
fights in the same area a day before.
Over all, I’m
very satisfied with the way the police dealt with the situation. They managed
to put an end for riots, arresting those who promotes violence and not using extreme
violence as they used to do before.
Look at my
photo album for the protest near the American Embassy in the following link
Feel free to make comments about my English. That’s how I improve
my English writing skills.
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