participants and observers from around the world, including a delegation of 80 South Koreans and 20 Canadians. The Muslim Brotherhood reported there were activists present from Palestine (including Hamas members), Iraq, Lebanon, Venezuela, Turkey, Greece, Nigeria, Britain, Tunisia, Sudan, France and Iran. Speakers included Ali Fayed of Hizbullah, Sadala Mazraani of the Lebanese Communist Party, James Clark of the Canadian Peace Alliance, Feroze Mithiborwala of the Muslim Intellectual Forum of India, John Rees of the Socialist Workers Party (UK) and Rose Gentle (the mother of Gordon Gentle, a British soldier killed while serving in Iraq, and a leading figure in Military Families Against the War). Sixth Conference – 2008 The sixth Cairo antiwar conference was held March 27–30, 2008. Seventh Conference – 2009 "The seventh Cairo anti-war conference was cancelled after being denied access to a venue". The Egyptian government and the Cairo conference Although the Egyptian government was formally against the Iraq War, relations between it and the conference are strained by the fact that Hosni Mubarak's regime received funding from the United States and that the regime feared popular movements which may have grown to challenge its dictatorship. Criticism Among the criticisms of the first Conference was that it was building solidarity not with ordinary Iraqis, but rather with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. This perception was fueled by the reported presence of a number of Iraqi officials at the conference. According to Al-Ahram Weekly, German journalist and author Harald Schuman attracted the ire of Nabil Negm, the chief political adviser to the Iraqi president, after comments he made insisting that claims that all the problems of the Arab world could be laid at the door of the US were only half-true and that the conference was not meant to "defend the Iraqi regime and Saddam Hussein in any shape or form". "I am here," he said, "to defend the Iraqi people." Further information Article on state repression of Egyptian anti-war movement Article on the relationship between anti-war movement and movement for democracy in the Middle East References First Conference Article on 1st conference, Socialist Worker Report on first conference by Al-Ahram Stan Crooke, "The Politics of the Cairo Declaration," New Politics, Vol. IX, No. 3 (New Series), Summer 2003, pp. 120–126. Second Conference Article on the 2nd conference, Socialist Worker Report on second conference by Al-Ahram Third Conference Article on the call for a 3rd conference,