Hossam el-Hamalawy
Kefaya activists are organizing a protest tomorrow Tuesday, 3 July, 9am in front of the State Council in Giza, to protest the government’s plans to privatize the state health insurance.
The Administrative Court will be looking into the lawsuit filed against the Prime Minister’s Decree no 637 for the year 2007, by which he laid the first steps into turning the state insurance system into a holding company, to be privatized later.
State Security has been summouning on a daily basis Ghazl el-Mahalla labor leaders, including Muhammad el-Attar and Sayyed Habib, for hours of interrogation before and following the protest held in the factory yesterday.
State Security officers threatened Attar and others of fabricating drug charges against them if they go ahead with the planned protest on 21 July. The labor activits were also offered “personal privileges” if they decided to cooperate with the security.
Are the security hassles having an impact? “No, no, no!” Attar told me. “I and my colleagues will continue to defend our rights and the rights of the workers in the factory. They will not scare me. They told me, ‘Go to the human rights organizations, and see if they do you any good.’ I know all Egyptians are behind us and support Mahalla. This gives us strength.”