three weeks outside the arab league

For Yemeni students Redhwan, Amru, and their fellow protesters, tomorrow will mark three weeks of protest outside the Arab League in Cairo. Despite the landmark decision to suspend Syria from the Arab League yesterday, nothing similar has so far followed for Yemen. Here are some photos taken over the last three weeks, in chronological order from bottom to top.

November 12 - Behind the police line, engineering student Ola leads the Yemeni section of the protest in chants, as delegates inside the Arab League vote on Syria's temporary suspension. Before the final decision is announced, Syrians, Yemenis, and Bahrainis protest together outside the main gate. Police attend the event, after a Syrian opposition delegate was pelted with raw eggs several days before.

November 10- It takes two lightbulbs to make a cup of tea in the protester's tent. “The generator can’t handle both [the kettle and the lighting],” explains Redhwan with a grin, as he takes them down.

November 6 - After the first prayer of Eid al-Adha, Yemenis join Syrians to protest against the regimes of Saleh and Assad. Despite one of the Syrian protester leaders announcing that there would be no Eid today but a "funeral for the martyrs", the mood is jovial on the first day of Eid. Old friends reunite outside the tent, and one man licks the remnants of a plate of basboosa, an Arabic cake, off his fingers.

November 1 - Yemen's candidates in this year's Arab Idol, sisters Amal and Houria, sing Dana Ye Dana and other Yemeni songs to fellow Yemenis, Egyptian passers-by, and Taizi opposition figure Sultan al-Samie on a visit to Cairo.

October 28 - A giant poster of Taha al-Juneid dwarfs the photos of other deceased protesters beside him. Medic student Redhwan knew him, and tells me how his friend's story turned the weekly protests outside the Arab League into a permanent sit-in. They abducted and tortured him for being a protester, he tells me. Before, protesters were been killed in the squares, but this was different. “I went out. We’re protesting! I said.” Redwan motions to the large poster of Taha behind him. “That one I printed,” he says quietly. “I paid for it myself.” (Taha's story with graphic images is here.)

October 28 - Engineering student Amru and law student Mustafa, who I found reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho at 8 am that morning, charge their phones from the tent's generator after a shared breakfast with their Syrian neighbours. The Syrian anti-Assad protesters have set up their tent on the pavement on the other side of the Arab League's permanently-closed front gate.

October 26 - As night falls, Yemenis gather in the newly-erected tent outside the Arab League headquarters just off Tahrir Square in Cairo. The make-shift tent, topped, with the Yemeni flag, was put up on October 24. "We ask the Arab League to suspend Yemen's membership," reads the sign.

al-sha3b yureed new clothes for 3eid - part 3

The night before Eid, all's well that ends well in the al-Sharif household. Some of the peaceful protesters' rights have been fulfilled, writes Amira al-Sharif.

As published before Al-Sharif's sisters remove the tents and take any things that could refer to demonstration at home. Though there is thing happened not expected that they get some of their demands which is great. They get Eid sweet, nuts, almond, raisin, orange Juice, glasses, spoons, perfumes, and all the ingredients for the cookies.

Right now toys and Al-Sharif's sisters are celebrating in the light of the candle while they still making the Eid cookies. Tomorrow will be the Eid, and all kids at home are excited, though all women so busy in the kitchen, in the early morning our male relatives will come to give us Asb (which an amount of money as a gift), so we will be rich tomorrow.

Al-Sharif sisters declare we love our father.

Correspondent from Sanaa,
Amira Al-Sharif

Happy Eid!

Photo by Amira al-Sharif

al-sha3b yureed new clothes for 3eid - part 2

Amira al-Sharif has posted a Facebook update on her sisters' peaceful living room protest for new clothes for Eid, after their father, a protester in the current uprising, announced that price hikes meant no presents this year. She writes:

Al-Sharif's Sisters' Night Meeting and New Decision
November 5, 2011

At dinner the good father looks sad, and eat little bit. Al-Sharif's sisters felt guilty because they thought they hurt his feelings. In a meeting in the candle light, they decided to remove the three tents from inside home as they prefer to stay without new clothes and Eid sweet rather than to see their father being sad. One of Al-Sharif's sister said, "My father felt sad may be he thought we are treating him as the president and it is hard for him to be treated as the tyrant Ali Saleh, at time he is one of the protestors, and doesn't deserve we do tent to demonstrate at home."

Correspondent from home in Sana'a,
Amira Al-Sharif

Photo by Amira al-Sharif

al-sha3b yureed new clothes for 3eid

As Eid al-Adha approaches, the spirit of peaceful protest has reached Sana'a homes, writes Yemeni photographer Amira al-Sharif. Her sisters have been staging a sit-in in their home's living room since yesterday demanding new clothes for Eid. "Al-sha'b yureed kaswat al-Eid," read the signs. "The people want new clothes for Eid." Her father, who has said that there would be no presents this year due to the deteriorating economy and increase in cost of living, has still not given in. When Amira asked him this morning if she could take his photo next to one of the curtain-and-cushion tents in the living room, he reportedly smiled and replied: "Don't be silly."

Amira continues to report on the situation, posting updates on Facebook.

Photos by Amira al-Sharif

cairo's yemenis #SupportYemen

This Saturday, dozens of Yemenis - medic and engineering students, mothers, fathers, children, and even a former major in the Yemeni military - protested in silence outside the Arab League headquarters in Cairo against the ongoing killing of peaceful protesters in Yemen. As Saturday is a day off in Egypt, there was nobody inside the Arab League offices, but the press turned up to cover the event. Similar protests were held at the same time around the world, notably in Dearborn, London, Paris and Amman.

In Sana'a, by midday on the second day of president Saleh's return to Yemen, the media centre at Change Square had reported 40 more deaths.

On the railings outside the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo on Saturday, Yemenis hang portraits of dozens of protesters killed during the anti-government protests in Yemen.

Those who turn up around midday politely greet everyone, then tie a piece of red, white, and black ribbon around their heads, and line up along the side of the pavement to have their mouths taped up for the silent demonstration.

"What evil... Our land is a land of challenges... " says this poster, in Yemeni dialect. The international community's silence will help Saleh kill the people, human rights activist Liza was quoted as saying in al-Masdar online.

"Saleh's regime is bloody and terrorist." Yemeni high school graduate and active tweeter @AbdulazizSakkaf said that joining the protest was the least that he could do.

Over a dozen Yemeni women turned up at the protest. Naguiba, who has lived in Cairo with her two daughters and daughter-in-law since March, said that she had come out to support democracy. "I refuse the war in Sana'a," she said. "I refuse Ali Abdallah Saleh to do this."

Behind the protesters, Yemeni youth activist Redhwan dictates a sentence to law graduate Hani, as the latter dashes off his news about the #SupportYemen protest on his laptop, before sending it off to news websites in Yemen.