Egypt deports more activists seeking to march to Gaza border
dpa
Cairo
Egyptian authorities have continued to send home foreign activists, who are trying to march to Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian enclave, sources at Cairo airport said on Saturday.
Dozens of activists of different nationalities were prevented from entering Egypt for violating the country's entry procedures and were deported on the same planes that had earlier brought them to Cairo, the sources said on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The aircraft were not granted permission to take off until the deportation procedures were completed, a measure that caused several flights to be delayed by 20-40 minutes, according to the sources.
Participants in the self-styled 'Global March to Gaza' had originally planned to travel from Cairo to the Egyptian city of Al Arish in Sinai, where they were to walk for about 50 kilometres to Rafah on the border with Gaza.
The activists also planned to protest at the Rafah border crossing for several days starting on Sunday. Protests are heavily restricted in Egypt.
Organizers said many participants had been detained, harassed, physically harmed and deported. Hundreds of activists were detained on Friday in the Egyptian city of Ismailia near the Suez Canal and had their passports confiscated, a security source said.
Carola Rackete, a lawmaker in the European Parliament from Germany's The Left party, posted a video on Instagram on Friday in which she said she was turned away at one of the checkpoints.
She and the other activists were purportedly loaded by force onto buses by security forces and sent back to Cairo. There was massive police violence, Rackete said in a second video posted Saturday. There was no official Egyptian comment.
In recent days, dozens of pro-Gaza activists have been arrested and deported by Egyptian authorities, organizers and sources in Cairo said. Earlier in the week, Egypt required the participants in the campaign to obtain prior entry visas or permits.
The activists say they want to draw attention to the worsening humanitarian situation in the populous enclave.
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