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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Volunteers to Gaza subject to strict security measures

PETALING JAYA: Volunteers in the Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza have been subjected to strict security measures and placed under guard the moment they left the border town of Rafah for Cairo on Friday evening.

Juana Jaafar, who volunteered with the Perdana Global Peace Organisation (PGPO), claimed that although volunteers were not manhandled, they had to wait at the checkpoint for eight hours to exit Gaza.

“Although staff from the Malaysian embassy are there to receive the Malaysian team, the convoy was driven directly to Cairo International Airport with a police escort.”

She said after arriving at the airport, they were confined to a waiting area, which had previously been used as a disease quarantine area.

“We are not allowed to leave the airport. Many of the other convoy members, who do not have early flights, will be sleeping in the waiting halls,” said Juana.

She also said that medical student Ibrahim Mohd Azmi, who was earlier picked up by the Egyptian police on Friday, had been detained again at the airport’s immigrations depot and released three hours later.

Juana said the Malaysian group would only be released from their holding area two hours before their flight to Dubai at 1.15am today, from which they would then journey to Kuala Lumpur.

Source: Malaysia Star.
Link: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/10/nation/5444696&sec=nation.

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