Nine months in, 'Blind Sheikh' supporters aren't giving up

Ambulance sirens and the sound of an occasional gunshot in the background cannot break the determined, measured cadence of Abdallah Omar Abdel Rahman, the son of the man convicted of helping coordinate the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and one of the leaders of a Cairo sit-in aiming to have him freed.
“Everyone has come to know the heroism of this man and the truth, which was concealed by the corrupt Mubarak regime,” he says.
The protest for the release of Abdallah's father, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman — known as “the Blind Sheikh” — could not seem more out of place. Just a street over on Qasr al-Aini, a December protest outside the cabinet building devolved into a street battle between protesters and unrestrained military and police forces, which ultimately left 17 dead and hundreds injured. But at the sit-in, located just a few hundred feet from the US Embassy in Cairo, five men sit down for a serene picnic.
Cairo's longest protest
Supporters held their first protest for Abdel Rahman's release on 21 April, and on 13 August, they began an open-ended sit-in that has continued uninterrupted for roughly five months since.
“We told all of the security forces in Egypt, there are only two ways we leave this place: We are killed or Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman is returned,” says Hagag al-Shimy, a brother-in-law of the sheikh.
Like many causes in revolutionary Egypt, the protest has since left the wider public's consciousness. Shimy's voice rises when he speaks about how young people nonchalantly walk by their protest, though he maintains that he is “not angry” with them.
“They don't do anything to free Omar Abdel Rahman. They don't care about the problem,” he complains.
Abdel Rahman's supporters have launched a ††††-fledged public campaign aimed at Egypt's revolutionary youth, as well as the US government and President Barack Obama. Their street corner is bedecked with posters featuring their demands and direct appeals to the American government. One sign reads, “To the American gov./Why insisting on getting Muslims hate?” Another: “SMS .. to OBAMA/Sincerity of Intentions with Egyptians/Freedom for OMAR ABD EL-RAHMAN.”
One protester asked this reporter to email Obama to request Abdel Rahman's release.
The protesters invited outsiders — journalists, embassy workers and curious onlookers — to sit down with them on the rugs they have laid out on the street. These encounters are invariably friendly, accompanied by tea and well-timed meals.
“I am not at all frustrated,” says Abdallah, when asked if he had expected more progress up until now. “The long period for the protest has enabled us to improve the sheikh's publicity, and correct his bad image.”
A violent solution?
But with the sit-in approaching the half-year mark, frustration seems to be pushing some protesters to consider alternative solutions.
“[The Americans] are losing Egypt,” says Hesham al-Ashry, who used to preach alongside Abdel Rahman in New York City, of continued imprisonment of the sheikh by the US. “They turned people who were very good to them [Egyptians] to be the main source of danger against them.”