2009 — Page 195 of 253

Free union refuse to join state-controlled federation

Posted on 17/03/200908/01/2021 By 3arabawy

Translation via Per:

El-Badeel reports: The head of the state-controlled trade union federation (EFTU), Hussein Megawer, has announced that he would agree to let the free union of the real estate tax collectors join the federation. Union leaders refused this offer, saying they will not enter the official union structure since it is controlled by the ruling party NDP, stressing that they have the right to organize independently according to the Egyptian constitution and international treaties signed by Egypt.

Continuous updates and resources in Arabic and English about the fight for free unions in Egypt could be found here.

Mubarak’s vision of “stability”

Posted on 17/03/200921/03/2015 By 3arabawy

“The best kind of day for Mubarak,” he said, “is a day when nothing happens.”

Suez pig gets 15 years for murder

Posted on 17/03/200931/01/2021 By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports:

A low ranking police officer who fatally shot a man has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
Alaa Tharwat Abdel Maqsoud was convicted yesterday by a court in Suez of murdering Muhammad Nasr Ibrahim.
According to the Torture in Egypt website, Ibrahim, a milkman was killed after an altercation over a driving license which occurred in a public square in Suez in 2007.
Ibrahim’s license application procedures had not been completed when he was stopped by Abdel Maqsoud while riding a motorbike, and was unable to hand over a license when Ibrahim demanded one of him.
Abdel Maqsoud responded by attempting to confiscate Ibrahim’s motorbike. When the latter refused, Abdel Maqsoud shot him in the neck at point blank range.
Abdel Maqsoud pleaded self-defense during the trial.
The heavy prison sentence is unusual in Egypt, where violations by the police are routine but officers rarely held to account, or handed down relatively light sentences.
Haitham Mohamadein, a lawyer with the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Violence who represented the victim’s family, told Daily News Egypt that he attributes the sentence to the “large numbers of eyewitnesses” who saw the incident and “the extremely narrow margin available for tampering with evidence”.