Helwan—6 April

Sursock received this message from Helwan via Glasgow Uni Socialist Worker Students Society:

In Helwan University our numbers were about 2000. At Cairo University they were around 1500. The Muslim Brotherhood were not part of the strike, they announced the day before that they would not be on the strike or the demonstrations— actually this increased the police pressure on us but it didn't affect us.

In Helwan we broke through the gate of the university to get out (Egyptian Universities are normally under tight security, like gated compounds, were everyone must show ID to enter) but the police forces were waiting for us.

They surrounded us, trying to isolate us from local people, pushing us back towards the gates. Of course we resisted and pushed our way back to the streets chanting “revolution till victory—revolution on every street in Egypt!”

The police were making the siege so tight (to force us back inside the campus) we tried pushing back in the opposite direction as much as we could, until we only had a few metres of space left.

We said “we will not go inside till the press get inside with us” because the police weren't allowing the reporters to get in and video the protest. After 15 minutes battling, with every team pushing in different ways, we succeeded to get the reporters into our university.

The police forces controlled all the space outside the gates. We shouted “today in the university but tomorrow in Helwan Square, in the factories, in the schools, and in the streets.”

At Cairo University the same happened but the police were too much there. Lots of troops occupied the campus and around the gates but despite this the comrades succeeded in holding the demonstration.

Around downtown Cairo the police arrested any activists who tried to demonstrate; most of the demonstrations were finished before they started. The police troops were everywhere, occupying all public squares. The biggest demonstration was at the Lawyers Syndicate. There were about 2000 people there from different places and from across the political spectrum.