Category: Blog

‘6th of April: To be or not to be’

Posted on By 3arabawy

In the run up to the 6th of April, Ghazl el-Mahalla turned into a battleground of propaganda and agitation between the Textile Workers’ League activists on the one hand, and on the other were the management, security and the group of workers around Attar and Habib who were trying to sabotage the strike.

Each camp was distributing hundreds and thousands of statements in the week prior to the 6th of April. According to two labor organizers I spoke with, the militancy in the garments section, that is composed largely of women workers, was the highest. These were the same workers who started the 7th of December strike, as 3000 of them struck and started marching, chanting “Where are the men? Here we are the women!”

One of the strongest pro-strike statements, distributed in the factory, appeared a couple of days prior to the uprising, titled “The 6th of April: To be or not to be,” signed by “The Women Workers of Ghazl el-Mahalla,” who were close to the Textile Workers’ League.

The statement denounced PM Nazif, the National Democratic Party, the company security and the state-backed union officials, endorsing the call to strike:

Police brutality takes its toll on special needs victim

Posted on By 3arabawy

Michaela Singer reports:

When Doctor Ilhamy Sultan began searching for his missing brother on the night of July 21, 2008, the last place he expected to find him was lying in a hospital bed, the victim of brutal police violence.
Ragai Sultan is 46 going on 47. However, with an IQ of 50, he could be classified as only borderline intelligent. This did not stop him from leading a normal life. Until two weeks ago, Ragai lived independently, bought his own food, cooked for himself, and went for walks near his home in Alexandria.
On the afternoon of July 21, Ragai was snatched by police as he was taking a walk along the Corniche. He was rounded up with a group of street children and bundled into the back of a police truck.
Ragai, although lacking the communication skills of an adult, is sitting wearing trousers and a neat shirt. His face bears the features of adulthood, although his wide blue eyes have a childlike innocence. They are also noticeably filled with fear.
“He was unlucky,” says his sister, Chinaz, “Out of all the young people they brought to the police station of Samouha, he was the one they beat up this badly.”
Police officers left Ragai unconscious. His head injuries were so severe he suffered from bleeding in the brain that lasted 10 days. Other injuries included a broken rib, shoulder and fracture in his neck, leaving his left arm paralyzed. After two and a half weeks, the bruising that covered his whole body is still visible.
The stitches on his head were almost a centimeter wide running vertically down his head.
Sitting across from Ragai, it is easy to hold a conversation with him. It would not have been difficult, one realizes, for police to quickly understand his situation, his condition, and that they had simply made a mistake. From the onset of his ordeal, Ragai, as he and Chinaz relate, tried to explain his identity.
“I told them I was from a good family, and the names of my neighbors, where I lived.” said Ragai.
Most importantly, Ragai carries with him his identity card at all times, as is obligatory of all Egyptian citizens. On the back of the card, a short statement informs the reader of his condition, and provides his brother’s details in case of any problems.
The identity card, however, did not stop police from taking a bat to Ragai, and beating him from head to toe.

DNE report on the Mahalla 49 trial

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports:

The trial of 49 people accused of a range of criminal offences allegedly committed during the April 6 clashes in Mahalla began Saturday at the Tanta Emergency State Security Court, where judges called for a continuance.
The next hearing will be held on Sept. 1.
Defense lawyer Ahmad Ezzat of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression told Daily News Egypt that only 26 of the group of 49 appeared in court.
The defense team requested that the public prosecution office be instructed to establish the status of all the defendants being held.
On his website 3arabawy ), journalist Hossam El-Hamalawy, who attended the trial, wrote that during the trial defendants cried out “hour after hour, detailing the police torture and abuse they faced in custody.”
The public prosecution office has not investigated defendants’ allegations of torture and abuse.
The group of 48 men and one woman were arrested in the weeks following protests which broke out in the Delta town of Mahalla over hiked food prices on April 6.
The demonstrations followed the collapse on the same day of a strike by 27,000 workers in a spinning factory in the town caused in part by security body intimidation.
Rights groups have condemned the excessive force — including live ammunition — which police bodies used against what eyewitnesses say was a peaceful demonstration.
Three people were killed during the demonstrations.
The group is being tried on what lawyers allege are spurious, trumped-up charges including “criminal damage to public and private property, assault of a public official, unlawful assembly of more than five people and illegal possession of weapons.”
The defense team requested that the court appoint accountants and engineers to assess and calculate the damage and loss described in the police reports.
The court assented to this request.
Defense lawyers also requested that the defendants be released on bail.
The court refused this and in fact ordered that defendants who had previously been released on bail be taken back into custody until the next court hearing.
Defendants pleaded not guilty to charges which right groups allege are being used to give credence to the government’s claims that the events of April 6 were an outbreak of thug-led violence, rather than an expression of discontent.