Unlike most anti-war demonstrations in Egypt, NDP rally will not condemns Bush

By Hamdi al-Husseini, IOL Staff

CAIRO, March 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) is organizing on Wednesday, March 5, a rally of some half a million Egyptians in protest at the looming U.S.-led war on Iraq and the daily massacres committed by the Israeli occupation army against the Palestinian people.

The rally, however, will not denounce the United States, party officials told IslamOnline's correspondent.

The NDP’s subsidiary committees have already printed thousands of pictures of Egyptian President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak, in his capacity as the head of the ruling party, in addition to hundreds of banners reading: “No to War on Iraq,” and “No to Daily Aggression on the Palestinians.”

“The rally is mainly aimed at giving an ample opportunity to the party’s members as well as members of other political parties to exercise their right to freedom of expression by rejecting the possible U.S.-led war on Iraq and voicing their absolute support to the Palestinians in their plight,” Member of the NDP Secretariat General Nabih al-Alqami told IslamOnline Tuesday, March 4.

Alqami said the party’s top leaders are keen on calling university students unions, university professors and representatives of Al-Azhar Al-Shareef and the Coptic Church to take part in the mass rally, noting that the party took a prior permission from the ministry of interior to organize the rally.

“The NDP is also organizing similar rallies in other Egyptian governorates, since the Cairo march is limited to members of the party in Cairo, Giza and Qalioubia governorates,” Alqami added.

Mohi Asraan, head of the municipal council for west of Cairo and NDP member, expects that the number of the participants will exceed aforesaid number, noting that it was expected that some 300,000 would come from Cairo alone.

Asraan said the Egyptian authorities took some measures to guarantee the successfulness of the rally, pointing out that Cairo had been divided into four converging centers to host the sea of demonstrators.

Asraan said the rally’s banners will not lash out at U.S. President George W. Bush or his administration, but they will reject war on Iraq and call for reaching a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis, an immediate stop to the Israeli massacres against the Palestinian people, putting the stalled Mideast peace negations back on track and accelerating the establishment of a Palestinian state with Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.