Tunisia and Egypt: People's Revolutions for Democracy and Human Rights at Tenleytown Library Monday

Tunisia and Egypt: People's Revolutions for Democracy and Human Rights

When: February 7th, 2011

Time:: 7pm to 8:45pm

Where: Tenleytown library, 4450 Wisconsin Ave, DC, NW, across from the Tenleytown Metro on the red line

The event is free and open to the public


There are massive, popular, and leaderless movements in Egypt and Tunisia demanding the end of dictatorships are captivating the world. While Tunisia ousted its corrupt dictator, much work remains to be done to reach the goal of democracy. Egyptians' peaceful protests for freedom are met with brutal repression (financed by US tax-payers' money), with Mubarak refusing to step down.

Please join these panelists to learn more about the latest developments:

Houeida Anouar, is an independent Tunisian activist with a strong background in both civil society traditional advocacy projects and digital activism. She has been involved in human rights and freedom of speech campaigns since the year 2000, as a blogger, editor of an alternative online media outlet. She is a former program officer at Freedom House. She will be visiting from Tunisia.

Pro-Democracy for Egypt Demonstration on Connecticut Avenue

If you were driving on Connecticut Avenue yesterday and you were anywhere near the intersection of Van Ness Street, then you weren't actually driving. You were parked, waiting for the large crowd of pro-democracy demonstrators to complete their march in the southbound lanes of Connecticut Avenue.  Police had closed off those lanes to car traffic to accommodate the impromptu crowd of several hundred, who were holding signs saying "Free Egypt" and chanting, "What do we want? Democracy! When do we want it? Now."

Adding to the bottleneck on Connecticut, the right lane in the block just south of Van Ness Street was blocked by street repairs.  When the marchers had moved on, allowing police to reopen the southbound lanes, the bottleneck did not clear up immediately, due to the construction.

Drivers who attempted to use Reno Road as a detour soon found that Reno Road was bumper-to-bumper as well.

Police, on hand in large numbers, were managing traffic as well as possible under the circumstances.  The demonstration was orderly and the crowd young and enthusiastic.