I received the following statement:
Egyptian workers’ solidarity statement
We, workers in Egypt, send our greetings to public sector workers in Britain, on strike against a pay freeze imposed by Gordon Brown’s government.
Our wages are very low, less than £50 per month. But we don’t need you to make “sacrifices” to your bosses, but to fight against them. Every pound that you force your government to spend on the salaries of public sector workers is a pound less that they can spend bombing Iraq and Afghanistan, or on supporting Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people. And weakening Bush and Brown’s war also weakens the Egyptian dictator, Mubarak, who exploits and oppresses us.
So your struggle in Britain is also our struggle. Victory in your strike. Long live the international solidarity of workers.
From your brothers and sisters in the Middle East:
1) The Property Tax Agency Strike Committee.
2) Mahalla Textile Workers’ League
3) Workers for Change Movement
4) The Center for Socialist Studies
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Now you can send solidarity to Egyptian protesters who are facing long jail terms after their arrest during demonstrations against rising prices on 6 and 7 April. Please add your name to the statement below.
Solidarity with the people of Mahalla
Stop the show trial of Egyptian protesters
We the undersigned express our full solidarity with the 49 Egyptian citizens, whom the Mubarak regime has decided to prosecute in an Emergency High State Security Criminal Court, accused of involvement in the two day uprising in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla in April. On the 6th and 7th April, Mubarak’s troops occupied, Ghazl el-Mahalla, the biggest textile mill in the Middle East, home to 27,000 workers, aborting a strike announced by the independent Textile Workers’ League in protest at spiralling food prices and to demand a raise in the minimum wage which has remained stagnant since 1984.
The troops used live ammunition, tear gas, water cannons and sticks against the peaceful protesters in the town who took to the streets after the crushing of the strike. At least three were killed, and hundreds were injured and detained. The 49 detainees face a list of trumped up charges, to which some have confessed under torture. They will be tried in an exceptional court, systematically denounced by human rights watchdogs for lacking the international standards for a “safe and just trial.”
We call on the Egyptian dictatorship to release them immediately.Mark Serwotka, General Secretary, PCS
Jane Loftus, President, Postal Executive, CWU
Trevor Ngwane – Anti-Privatisation Forum, South Africa
Professor Alex Callinicos, King’s College, London
Eamonn McCann, journalist and anti-war campaigner, Ireland
Richard Boyd-Barrett, People not Profit Alliance, Ireland
Chris Nineham, Stop the War Coalition
James Eaden, National Executive, UCU
and more than 500 other signatoriesAdd your name:
Name
Address / Email
Organization / UnionPetition organized by the Cairo Conference Committee UK.
Return names to ‘Cairo Conference’ c/o Stop the War, 27 Britannia Street, London, UK, WC1X 9JP or by email to cairoconference@stopwar.org.uk. Names will be added to a statement to be delivered to the Egyptian embassy in London.
For more information about the campaign contact cairoconference@stopwar.org.uk