Egyptians and Egyptian-Americans in New York City area converged on Times Square yesterday afternoon to support the protesters calling for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down. The Alliance of Egyptian-Americans's Chairman Ahmed Fathi said, "Today we are standing in solidarity, not just with Egyptian-Americans, but with American citizens from all walks of life and all backgrounds, to support our American values. We are supporting universal values for democracy, freedoms and human rights."
Gatherers, who marched across Midtown to the East Side, held signs reading, "Don't treat about illegitimate president with respect!" "No more US $ for the bloody Mubarak dictatorship" and "Resist all government oppression." One Egyptian American told WNYC that there were "a lot more foreigners" at yesterday's event, "A lot of times at our protests you find a lot of Arabs without a lot of American support, but this time we've had a lot of American support."
Another weighed in on Mubarak's claims of chaos if he resigns, "Mubarak says, 'Oh, if I go out, the Muslim Brotherhood will take over!' He's trying to scare America, to scare Europe. The Muslim Brotherhood is from the Egyptian people. We can't kick them out of the new government. The Muslim Brotherhood is not all people like you think of, Al-Qaeda and all this. They want to help Egypt, along with ElBaradei, [Secretary-General of the Arab League] Amr Moussa...We have plenty of good people in Egypt. It's just Mubarak, just go!"
