Al-Masry Al-Youm is reporting strike sit-in that started in the North & South Cairo, Giza Grain Mills Company in Talbeya (Faisal St, Giza) spread to the company’s branch in Sharabeyya district in Cairo, bringing a total number of 9000 workers on strike into the sit-in.
Category: Blog
Cairo Anti-War Conference: Abu Omar makes an appearance; Sharqawi identifies his torturers
The second day at Cairo’s 5th Anti-War Conference and 3rd Cairo Social Forum brought earthshaking surprises at it’s Anti-Torture Forum, held on Friday afternoon.
Abu Omar–the Alexandrian cleric kidnapped 2003 by the CIA in Milan and rendered to Egypt where he was brutally tortured–showed up today at the Press Syndicate, defying the travel ban imposed on him by State Security as a condition for his release. Abu Omar took part in the Anti-Torture Forum, chaired by leftist activist Dr. Aida Seif el-Dawla, where he presented his testimony about his torture odyssey from Milan to Cairo, via Germany. “I was severely tortured by the Mukhabarat and State Security,” Abu Omar said. “I was electrocuted for months, till my whole body turned black.”
Abu Omar expressed fears of re-arrest by the Egyptian police for speaking to the media, but insisted he will keep on talking. “If I stay silent, these practices (by the Egyptian security services) will continue.” The cleric also pleaded to be allowed to leave Egypt, back to Italy.
Another political bomb was thrown by blogger Muhammad el-Sharqawi, who gave his testimony about the torture and sexual abuse he faced in Qasr el-Nil Police Station on 25 May 2006. For the first time, Sharqawi named his torturers.
“Police Major Samaw’al Muhammad Abu Sehla was the first to kidnap me from the car I was in on that day,” Sharqawi told the audience.
And, “the State Security officer who supervised my torture inside Qasr el-Nil Police Station is named Sherif.”
Sharqawi also expressed his frustration with the refusal of the authorities to open an investigation into his abuse, despite the repeated requests by his lawyers, accusing State Security of breaking into his house and stealing his laptop.
1000 Giza grain mill workers stage sit-in
More than 1,000 workers at the state-owned Grain Grinding Mills in Talbeya, Giza, have started a sit-in Thursday morning, protesting the government’s decision to reduce the supply of wheat to the company, in favor of privately owned firms, in what the workers fear as the first step towards privatizing or closing down the mills.