Egyptians in the US on 8 December flashed the Rabia sign, the four-finger salute commemorating the hundreds of anti-coup demonstrators gunned down in mid-August in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, from open top tourist buses in New York City of America to protest against the 3 July military coup in Egypt. Egyptians living in and around New York organised the unique demonstration to protest against General Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi and the interim administration, who are considered to have overthrown Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian President Mohamed Morsi.
Protestors chanted ‘‘democracy, free Egypt and revolution” as the buses moved along New York City’s most popular areas, starting from 7th Avenue and 49th Street in Manhattan and traveling to Times Square and Union Square. New Yorkers eating at restaurants and those walking and driving along the streets gave support to the activists on buses by making the Rabaa sign. Expressing that they want to live freely again and Morsi’s release, Sayed Zayan was reported saying, “We need to be free. We do not want the military to control our country. We want all detained persons to be released.”