Who Organised the Cairo Conference?
The conference was organised by the Egyptian Popular Campaign to Confront US Aggression (EPC). The EPC had been set up by the Egyptian Bar Association in September (2002). Its founding conference attracted Nasserists, Islamists, Marxists, public celebrities, and members of trade unions and professional syndicates. According to Ashraf Bayoumi, one of the founders of the EPC, its members regard themselves as “defenders of the national security of the country (Egypt).” An EPC press release, issued on the occasion of its founding conference, stressed the need to ‘defend our national security and interests’ and to combat the USA’s goal of ‘ensuring absolute control over the entire Arab nation.’ According to the press release, it was ‘a human, religious and national duty’ to combat ‘US domination, dictates and militarised globalisation, in which its strategic ally, the Zionist entity, plays a key role.’ Opponents of the Cairo Conference have alleged that Iraq helped fund the conference. Alth
