Following the Obour Central Security Forces conscripts mutiny (which was put down by the intervention of the army, together with concessions and promises offered), now around 300 soldiers and corporals at the neighboring 6th of October City police camp, assigned with guarding private and public banks, businesses and facilities, have gone on mutiny too, over pay.
The civil servants at the Interior ministry too are on strike, over pensions, pay and abusive treatment as civilians on the hands of the police officers. These civil servants’ strike is happening, following a national strike by the police corporals, over pay, work conditions, ill treatment by the officers. The corporals were also demanding an end to military tribunals in the police force.
Workers at eight factories owned by the interior ministry, producing consumer goods for officers, have also gone on strike over contracts.
Make no mistake, Mubarak’s interior ministry is still alive and well. We smashed it on the Friday of Anger and dealt some strong blows to it, including the March 2011 raids against SS offices. We’ve smacked the pigs’ asses on several occasions including the mini uprising in November 2011. But still, the Central Security Forces, SS (or what’s now called National Security Sector) and most of the repression machine is intact, and moreover is now receiving the direct help of the army’s military police and intelligence services.
As we continue to organize and fight against the interior ministry, in an effort to dissolve it and replace it with a different form of policing, such strikes and mutinies by the conscripts, corporals and civil servants should be supported by the revolutionary forces to create more fractures in this repression machine.