A report by Reuters:
Egypt police close down workers’ rights group
CAIRO, April 25 – Egyptian police closed down on Wednesday the headquarters of an independent organization which gives legal advice to workers and unofficial trade unions, one of the founders of the organization said.
Rahma Rifaat, a lawyer and workers’ rights activist, told Reuters four truckloads of police evicted all 30 people from the headquarters of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) in Helwan, an industrial suburb of Cairo.
“Of course there was some arguing and pulling and shoving, but in the end their strength was much greater than ours, and so they threw us out of the place … then they closed the place down and sealed it with red wax,” she said.
She said the police did not have the correct authorisation for the operation from any government ministry.
The Interior Ministry, which controls the police force, said it had no comment on the operation in Helwan.
The campaign against the organization coincided with a wave of unofficial strikes across Egypt, especially in the textile sector. In many cases owners and managers have ended the strikes quickly by satisfying the strikers’ demands.
Egyptian authorities have already closed down two branches of the organization — one in the southern town of Naga Hammadi, which has several large factories, and the other in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla, a major center for the textile industry.
Police also closed a smaller branch office in Helwan on Wednesday, leaving the organization with only one branch, in industrial Tenth of Ramadan City, east of Cairo, Rifaat said.