Venezuelan activist Hindu Anderi at a Palestine solidarity event in Caracas. Photo: Enrique Hernández/CiudadCCS.
Venezuelan journalist and Palestine solidarity activist Hindu Anderi was deported from Egypt, where she arrived as a representative of the Forum for Popular Participation (FPP) to participate in the Global March to Gaza. The march was planned to start on June 12 to reach Rafah, the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip. Over 170 international activists attempting to participate in the march were also arrested or deported from Egypt.
At least 30 of those arrested are Spanish nationals, in addition to 40 Algerians, Libyans, and Moroccans, among many others already under expulsion orders from the country.
Anderi’s expulsion took place on Wednesday, June 11, and was reported from Istanbul, Turkey, by the journalist herself through social media and the Venezuelan outlet Diario Vea. Anderi is widely known for her Palestine solidarity activism in Venezuela.
José Arriechi, a photojournalist, was another Venezuelan deported from Egypt, as reported by journalist Érika Ortega Sanoja.
The events took place at the Cairo International Airport where, along with other Venezuelans, Anderi was prevented from entering Egypt. “We arrived around 1:00 a.m., we went to immigration, where a woman told us to take our passports to someone else,” Anderi reported. “Our passports were retained for about three hours and then, at our insistence, … I was told that in five minutes I would be given my luggage.”
“It all turned out to be a lie,” she added. “What they did was check the passports of those of us who arrived on that flight, and then we were told that we could not enter.”
She reported that violence was used against those who sat down on the floor of the airport to protest against the inexplicable procedure. “The officers were very violent. Some grabbed the suitcases and threw them at the people. It was very ugly and very unpleasant,” she explained, adding that at some point the activists panicked “because we thought that they were going to attack us in some other way.”
She also condemned the deception on the part of the airport staff. “At around 6:00 a.m., they deceived us, they told us that they were going to give us our luggage and that we should go and collect it at a place. Then, when we got there, they practically pushed us towards the outside of the airport and forced us to get on a bus that took us to a plane that transferred us to Istanbul,” Anderi reported.
“We have tickets to return to Caracas on June 20, and it turns out that we cannot use them now. We are stranded at the Istanbul airport, waiting for the possibility of boarding to Caracas,” she added.
Anderi wondered if other activists would be able to participate in the march, “because it is being sabotaged by the government of Egypt, which is under pressure from the terrorist regime of Israel.”
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Venezuelans in the Global March to Gaza
In a report shared hours before the activists left Venezuela, the FPP released the names of the other people who would attend the march: José Arrieche, Joel Linares Moreno, Stephanie Sandoval, Kristian Anzola, Luis Ortuño, Gabriela Henríquez, Heyerde López, Iraida Morocoima, Haydee Padilla, and Luis Miguel Guerrero.
As reported in a statement by the Global March to Gaza organizers, over 200 people from a dozen countries, including 26 Spaniards, have been arrested in Egypt, some at immigration in Cairo airport and others in several raids in hotels during the early hours of Thursday morning. Almost all of them have been able to return to their hotels after the consular services mediated. Nine activists, however, were deported.
On Thursday afternoon, most of the 48 planes carrying hundreds of people planning to attend the march arrived in Cairo. To avoid a massive rejection at immigration, dozens of international media have been summoned. “As long as we do not have an explicit ‘no,’ we are hopeful that we will be able to enter,” said Nacho Prieto, one of the spokespersons of the Spanish delegation, shortly before boarding the plane to Cairo. The organizers reported that there are already hundreds of participants in Cairo and that they will go ahead with the scheduled plan.
Detentions in Cairo
Israeli War Minister Israel Katz ordered the Zionist occupation army to block the movement of activists from Egypt into Gaza. He demanded that Egyptian authorities detain the “jihadist protesters” who are a “threat to the security of Israeli soldiers.”
In response, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry highlighted the importance of pressuring the Zionist entity to lift the siege on Gaza and allow humanitarian aid to enter. However, the ministry added that any pro-Palestine action by foreign delegations on its territory must obtain prior authorization.
This warning materialized with arrests in Cairo when hundreds of activists from various organizations were violently deported by the Egyptian authorities as they attempted to join the Global March to Gaza.
According to the activists themselves, police and Cairo Airport officials violated their human rights, subjecting them to deception, holding them for more than six hours in the control area, and even beating them before forcing them to leave the airport in buses, without returning some of their belongings. The Egyptian government indiscriminately deported the activists.
Given this situation, solidarity organizations have issued a call to demonstrate on June 15 at Egyptian embassies around the world. The aim of these protests is to condemn the Egyptian government’s complicity with the Zionist regime, its sabotage of the initiatives in favor of the Palestinian people, and preventing the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Seif Abu Kishk, one of the organizers of the march, announced that some 4,000 activists from 44 countries had booked flights to Cairo with the intention of marching 50 kilometers from Arish to Rafah, on the Egyptian side of the Gaza border. Meanwhile, the Sumud caravan, composed of Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccans, and Mauritanians, advanced through Libya, receiving the support of its prime minister, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, and now awaits authorization to enter Egypt.
These international solidarity movements—including the Sumud caravan, the Global March, and the Madleen flotilla that was already hijacked by Israel—aim to highlight the critical humanitarian situation in Gaza after 20 months of genocidal Zionist attack that has left over 60,000 Palestinians dead. International pressure is growing on Israel to allow the entry of aid and alleviate the widespread shortage of food and basic necessities in the Gaza Strip.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
