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‘Land Friday’ Trends Worldwide as Thousands Protest in Egypt to Keep Islands from Saudi

April 15, 2016
Protests on 15 April, dubbed “Land Friday”. Credit: Mohamed El Ra3y

‘Friday of the Land’ (#جمعه_الارض) became a worldwide trend on Twitter as thousands gathered in Cairo, Alexandria, Mansoura, Suez and other cities to demonstrate against Egypt’s recent decision to declare two islands as Saudi Arabian. Since trending on Friday morning, the hashtag has been used in more than 150,000 tweets. Twitter users have been using the hashtag to vent their frustrations online about the “selling of the islands to Saudi Arabia”. Many have even called for the ouster of President Sisi. 3 of my uncles had fight in the Egyptian army to keep these islands but recently traitors are doing their best to let it go#جمعه_الارض — إبراهيم باشا (@Nassefovic) April 15, 2016 الى طلعت حرب الان 👍👍#جمعة_الأرض pic.twitter.com/sBZHwPmWCc — مُسمار (@MmMandoonly48) April 15, 2016 However, others have used it to defend President Sisi, criticizing the protesters for ignoring the “historical accounts of the islands belonging to Saudi Arabia”. Earlier on Friday, more than 20,000 tweets used the hashtag “We are one hand [in unity] with Sisi” (#كلنا_يد_واحده_مع_السيسي), making it, at the time, the top trending tweet in Egypt. It has been more than a year since protests of this scale…


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