Chants as Netanyahu meets Mubarak

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Cairo for a 90-minute meeting on Tuesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for talks that focused on breaking the deadlock in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. He was greeted by a sour atmosphere in The Egyptian capital.

The chants of “Down with Isreal”, “Stop the War”, “Free Gaza”, and “Down with Netanyahu” could be heard ringing outside the Syndicate of Journalist building in Cairo from late this afternoon. Egyptian nationals and foreign delegates from 43 nations converged on the stairways of the building to protest Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Egyptian government had deployed their riot police to create a human barricade to contain the growing crowd. The load vocal group consisted of local Egyptians including housewives and journalist and international delegations from Austria, Italy, South Africa, Switzerland and many more.

Chatted with an Egyptian journalist Ahmed Ragb, who had come to lend support to the protest, Ahmed was one of the journalists who had been detained on Monday, at the French Embassy in Cairo, for recording footage of the protest. He says that Egyptian police had detained him for a few hours, letting him go after minor harassment.

According to Ragb, this was the first time that riot police had not being physical at a protest. Egyptian police usually have long baton that they use on demonstrators. He recounted an incident of his arm being broken last year while protesting on the 27th of December against the Israel offensive.