***UPDATE*** Code Pink Cofounder Medea Benjamin Detained in Cairo and Assaulted - Why? In America Protesting is "Supposed" to be PATRIOTIC

Just a day before Medea Benjamin left for Gaza I met her- She did NOT deserve to be treated by Egypt they way she was... How "much" taxpayer money goes to them? 

"...Code Pink confirmed that Benjamin had hoped to meet with female Palestinian activists in Gaza, which shares a border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is conducting a military offensive in the northern Sinai, and the crossing point into Gaza at Rafah is often closed....

...Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Atty said Benjamin was not formally deported, but rather “convinced” to board a return flight to Istanbul because travel to Gaza via Rafah would be impossible. Asked whether she had been harmed in any way by police, he said she had been “dealt with in a decent manner.”

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-egypt-california-activist-detained-20140304,0,1726761.story#ixzz2v14qZ5u5

Protesting is PATRIOTIC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 4, 2014

Contact: Alli McCracken, CODEPINK National Coordinator, 860-575-5692, alli@codepink.org

    Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK Co-founder, 415-235-6517

CODEPINK Co-founder Medea Benjamin Detained, Brutally Attacked and Deported from Egypt en route to Gaza with International Delegation of Women

On the night of March 3, 2014, co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK Medea Benjamin was on her way to Egypt to join an international delegation of women going to Gaza when she was detained by border police in the Cairo airport, held overnight in a cell, and then brutally tackled (her arm badly injured), handcuffed, and deported to Turkey. During her time in the detention cell she had access to a cell phone, from which she contacted colleagues at CODEPINK about the poor conditions of the cell andchronicled her ordeal via Twitter. When the Egyptian police removed her from the detention center, they used such excessive force she sustained a fracture and torn ligament in her shoulder.  

Calling from Istanbul, Benjamin gave the following statement: “I was brutally assaulted by Egyptian police, who never said what I was being accused of. When the authorities came into the cell to deport me, two men threw me to the ground, stomped on my back, pulled my shoulder out of its socket and handcuffed me so that my injured arm was twisted around and my wrists began to bleed. I was then forced to sit between the two men who attacked me on the plane ride from Cairo to Istanbul, and I was (and still am) in terrible pain the whole time.” Doctors in the Cairo airport said she was not fit to travel because of her injury, but the authorities forced her to board anyways.

She is currently in Istanbul, Turkey, receiving medical attention at a hospital before she returns to the US. It is still unclear why the Egyptians deported her. Medea’s colleagues at CODEPINK are appalled by the unnecessary use of force by Egyptian authorities.

In response to a call from the women of Gaza, Benjamin was traveling through Egypt to be a part of the CODEPINK contingent of an international coalition of 100 women traveling to Gaza to witness the hardships facing the 1.7 million residents, deliver humanitarian aid, and call attention to the need for a longer-term strategy to achieve peace and justice for Palestinians.

Benjamin has her phone and is available for interviews: 415 235 6517.

- See more at: http://codepink.org/article.php?id=6644#sthash.SKvVdStO.O1mwq1Le.dpuf