Doaa Emroe had not been able to speak with her sister in Egypt for days until a neighbor with a land line phone and spotty coverage connected them.
Emroe’s sister, who lives in the city of Alexandria in the African nation, is among thousands of Egyptians who have protested for five days against the current political regime of President Hosni Mubarak.
“She’s OK, for now,” said Emroe, 40, who left Egypt seven years ago. “She is doing her part there and we are here supporting them."
Emroe joined more than 100 demonstrators, most of them from Egypt, in downtown Atlanta Saturday, rallying in support of the thousands of protesters in Egypt and calling for the U.S. government to take a strong stand against Mubarak. The protests in Egypt have left more than 70 people dead.
“It’s our government that has kept him where he is for the last 30 years. All the Egyptians that I know haven’t wanted him for at least the last 20 years,” said Sameh Abdelaziz, one of the rally organizers. “As long as the American government is not firm, this guy doesn’t care and will stay there.”
Abdelaziz, 51, returns to Egypt about every other year to visit his family. He said the people are struggling and the government is out of touch.
Earlier this week Mubarak implemented an overnight curfew and an almost complete communications blackout and deployed the country’s military to suppress the revolt.
On Friday, President Barack Obama urged Mubarak to take “concrete steps” toward the economic and political reform the protesters have pushed for. Egypt has been a close U.S. ally since making peace with Israel in 1979.
“The United States cannot be on both sides of this issue,” said Ahmed Ahmed, 20, a Georgia Tech student and Egyptian native who attended Saturday’s rally.
About 180,000 Egyptians live in the United States, according to Census Bureau data from 2008, the latest statistics available for this category. The American government has a responsibility to those residents and the people of Egypt, Ahmed said. “If Obama is truly interested in democracy in the Middle East, he must tell Mubarak to pull the plug.”
Like Ahmed, Andrew Smith put much of the impetus on helping end the Egyptian uprising on Obama and the U.S government.
“It really disappoints me to see Obama not take a harder stance against him and the United States continuing to give billions of dollars of aid to the Egyptian government despite the fact that they are against democracy," said Smith, 24, who is studying Middle Eastern history at Georgia State University.
Much of the uprising in Egypt has been led by young people, and the crowd at Saturday’s rally was filled with young demonstrators.
Hoda Kamel, 32, helped organize Saturday's rally through the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
"I just felt really desperate being so far away and not being able to help," said Kamel, an Egyptian native who has lived in Atlanta for seven years. "I thought it was my role and responsibility to do something, and along with other members of the Egyptian community we felt this was a way to do that."
With communication into and out of Egypt inconsistent, Egyptians living in the United States must do their part for the protesters abroad, said Islam Mohamed, 27. He and his wife Randa, also 27, moved to America from Egypt so Mohamed could complete a doctoral program at the University of Georgia.
“Our families’ and friends’ voices have been silenced through a shutdown of telephones and the Internet, but they are not alone,” he said. “We hear them, we also want Mubarak out, and we are their voices of hope.”
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