Press Release - Jan 27th

The Irish Anti War-Movement is holding a picket of the Egyptian Embassy, Clyde Road. Ballsbridge. Dublin 4, at 2.30pm on Friday 28th January in solidarity with protesters in Egypt, demanding democracy and an end to the dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak.

The Dublin protest was called following yesterday's events in Egypt, where tens of thousands of protestors calling for the resignation of President Murbarak have been met with tear gas, killings and imprisonment. Protesters who jammed Cairo's huge Tahrir Square yesterday participated in the biggest political demonstration seen in the Egyptian capital in more than 30 years.

The Irish Anti War movement has condemned the killing of at least five people by Egyptian state's security forces and the imprisonmemt of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters.

The Dublin protest will coincide with massive protests on the same day planned in Egypt itself and in a host of other countries across the region.

IAWM Chairperson, Richard Boyd Barrett said:

"We call on people in this country who support the struggle for democracy in Egypt and for the peoples across the region to come and join our solidarity picket.

This brutal suppression of the democratic right to demonstrate in Egypt is part of the same authoritarianism that has closed its borders to the people of Gaza. Egypt’s silence on the rights of Palestinians is what makes Mubarak’s regime such an important ally for the US in the region."

Egypt's inspiring democracy movement has put a spotlight on the U.S.-backed police state ruled by Hosni Mubarak, the 83-year-old dictator despised for presiding over a society in which a tiny minority has amassed enormous wealth while more than 23 percent of the population of 79 million lives under the official poverty line. The resurgence of Egyptian workers' strikes and protests is now feeding into the pro-democracy movement.

It will be interesting to see whether those voices who talked so much about democracy to justify the US bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan, will support now a real people's movement for demcracy against a US backed dictatorship."

For more info/confirmation

Richard Boyd Barrett 086-7814520

Jim Roche 087-6472737