Egyptians Against Torture Bloggers Nora Younis, Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, and Ahmad Abdel Qawi travelled to the Fayoum Oasis to interview the family of a man killed under torture by Mubarak’s police.
Ghazl el-Mahalla on STRIKE!
Excerpts from a message I received from journalist Jano Charbel:
I went to the Mahalla Strike on Sunday.
7aga Gamda Gamda! (This is solid solid!) 25,000 men and women on strike.. very uplifting!
The company’s security guards wouldn’t let me in, they then took me and photographer Ahmad Ismail to the security chief – some brigadier general – who told me that we couldn’t enter. He said “da beiti wenta deif, wana ka sa7eb el beit men 7a2i en amna3ak men dukhoul beiti (This is my house, and you are my guest. It’s my right to ban you from entering my house).”
He told us to do our work outside the company’s walls.
Workers whom I don’t know saw that we couldn’t get in, so they brought us inside by force.
Around 10 workers intertwined their arms in mine and cannon-balled me through three lines of security guards.
The mood inside was one of total defiance. People are sick of the ultra low wages, company corruption, and financial fraud.
The security is totally pissed off, and will crackdown and arrest the heroes.
This (Mahalla strike) looks likes it could very well spread further and beyond – to Kafr El Dawwar to elsewhere across the country.
Here are some of the pix taken by Jano:
MB students referred to disciplinary committee
From the Daily Star Egypt…
Twenty-six students at Assiut University, along with others in a number of other national universities including Cairo University, were referred to a disciplinary committee for their affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood group, said Mahmoud Ezzat, a leading member of the group.
Ezzat told Daily News Egypt that the students had not displayed any violent or “even political” behavior.
“They [the students] were only participating in social activities that will benefit their communities and train them to be useful in society,” Ezzat added.
He regretted the fact that student activities have been hijacked by the government.
“Both the faculty and administration are hired by the president of the university who, in turn, is hired by the government and hence they are all expected to follow government policies,” Ezzat added.
These universities’ administrative systems are undemocratic, paying no respect to privacy laws, he lamented, alleging that students are always being watched.
Abdel-Aziz Mogahed, a lawyer representing some of the 28 students who were arrested at the Faculty of Commerce in Helwan University last year during the student union’s presidential elections, told Daily News Egypt that national universities had meted out very harsh punishments to MB-affiliated students, disregarding their legal and constitutional rights.
“The punishments of some of the Helwan students arrested last year ranged from suspension to jail sentences which, in some cases, reached up to three years,” Mogahed added.
When Mogahed filed a lawsuit against Helwan University asking for the re-admission of some of the dismissed students, the court ruled in their favor within two weeks. But the university did not implement the verdict immediately. Instead, it slowed down the admission process on purpose, which meant that they missed a whole semester.