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Hossam el-Hamalawy

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Hossam el-Hamalawy

Crackdown on Egyptian blogosphere continues

Posted on 08/03/200727/12/2020 By 3arabawy

I received the following message from blogger ِAmr Gharbeia:

Rumors have been reaching me for days now, and I received confirmation only today from lawyer Gamal Eid, executive manager of Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.
It seems that Judge Abdel Fattah Morad, head of Alexandria Appeal Court, has started a lawsuit against the government in Egypt’s Administrative Courts in order to block a number of Egyptian websites. The list, 21-websites-long, includes the blogs and sites that took part in the discussion around the book the Judge has written, and the wide plagiarism evident in the book copying HRInfo’s report on Internet Freedoms in the Arab World, and a how-to-blog guide written by blogger Bent Masreya.
Of the 21 blogs and website, I was able so far to confirm Kifaya’s and HRInfo’s websites, in addition to the blogs of Bent Masreya, Yehia Megahed, and my own.

UPDATE: More details from Amr:

The lawsuit is started by Abdel Fattah Murad, one of Egypt’s most senior judges–and head of the Alexandria Appeal Court, where imprisoned blogger Abdul Kareem Nabil Soliman’s case is heard next week.
The judge is a self-claimed authority in internet issues. I was excited by the fact that he started a blog a while ago, and wrote him asking if he would mind me writing a review for a book he published recently on “the scientific and legal foundations of blogs”. He did not mind, until I published the thing. He obviously has copied tens of pages from the recent report by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information on Internet freedoms in the Arab world. I noticed this only because some of the figures and estimations were taken from an interview with me. He did this without citation, except for one link to in the endnotes, while putting footnotes to other books he wrote on text that he has not written.
Three things prove it is not a mistake: 1) he copied at least two other bloggers with no referencing at all; 2) he changed parts in the text copied from the report to mean the opposite, for example to indicate that Tunisia is a nice, liberal and progressive country; and 3) he published at the front and back pages of his book several warnings against plagiarism, and referred to laws, religions and scientific research methods. He does not allow anyone to cite anything more than two lines from his writings, and in the book he warns against bloggers who violate copyrights, associates them with international terrorism and other things, and claims he has written a reference on scientific methodology. To top it all, he annexes ready-to-fill complaint forms against bloggers who publish pornography (fitting someone’s head over a naked body, an imaginary case with no history in Egypt’s blogs) and publicizing news that could tarnish the country’s reputation.
I do not really care much for copy rights, and think they are over-rated and keep knowledge, medicine, and soon genetically-engineered food from the world’s poorest, and I would not have written anything if this was another blogger, or a journalist, or even a university professor. What worries me, however, is that this is a judge whose ruling cannot be appealed. He can silence, imprison or execute people, and he oversees our elections.
Once the blogs are found offensive by the court, then in light of the Egyptian’s regime reputation, it is automatic to prosecute the bloggers. This is an early warning. We are still gathering information, and HRInfo should be making a release and starting procedure Saturday next.

Al-Jazeera reporter trial lacks fair standards, rights groups say

Posted on 08/03/200726/12/2020 By 3arabawy

I received the following update from HR-INFO on the trial of Al-Jazeera’s Howeida Taha:

The session yesterday including watching small parts of the 16 tapes that were confiscated on 8 January 2007 claiming that these tapes included acting scenes that Al-Jazeera is planning to broadcast and destroy the reputation of Egypt. The court then asked to hear the witnesses presented by the State Security Prosecutor. The defense requested the session to be postponed for the defense to discuss some of the witnesses and some officers of the Ministry of Interior who were interviewed by Howayda Taha during here preparation for the documentary. In addition, the defense wanted to bring in some of the doctors who were interviewed. The judge refused any of these requests and postponed the case to 28 March to hear the defence statements and disregarding defense requests!
The three human rights organizations announced their fears that standards for a just trial would not be respected in this case. Without these fulfilling the requests of the defense team, it would be difficult to prepare a strong defense that is based on discussion with witnesses and experts. Their statements might change the way the case is heading. In addition, the court refused to watch the tapes completely in order to guarantee that the tapes really destroy the reputation of the country or not, especially that the material in the tapes is still unedited.
It is worth mentioning that while discussing the witnesses, it appeared that there has been contradictions in the statement of one of the state security officer who took the witness stand upon the request of the prosecutor. The witness is supposedly the one who carried the investigation for this case. His answers varied from a strong belief that the material on the tapes are fabricated to him saying in the same session that he was not sure of Howayda Taha’s time of travel and that he was surprised that the material in the tapes are fabricated after he watched it with millions of others on a Television after copies of the tape were leaked in a controversial manner!

Schindler workers reach agreement with management to secure their rights

Posted on 08/03/200716/01/2021 By 3arabawy

The workers at Schindler company succeeded in forcing the management to an agreement that secures the workers’ rights, as the management starts liquidating the business on Saturday via selling the factory’s land.

Initially the company was going on with the sale, without guaranteeing any of its labor force’s rights in their late bonuses, salaries, retirement funds, etc. The bosses were very arrogant in their negotiations with the labor union officials, which reached a dead end on Tuesday night.

After the workers threatened an open ended sit-in, the government intervened to mediate and brought the management back to the negotiations table.

Here are the details of the agreement in Arabic, as received from a Socialist labor union activist:

بعد التهديد بالاضراب
نجاح عمال شندلر في الوصول إلي اتفاقية عمل جماعية تضمن حقوقهم
لقد نجح عمال شركة شندلر فرعي القاهرة والاسكندرية، بعد التهديد بالإضراب والاعتصام في الاتحاد العام، بقيادة لجنتيهما النقابيتن في الفرعين في الوصول لإتفاقية عمل جماعية تضمن حقوق العمال وذلك قبل إجراء المزاد العلني لبيع أرض المصنع السبت القادم.
وقد كان العمال ومعهم ممثليهم من النقابيين قد وصلوا إلي طريق مسدود مع رئيس الشركة حتي مساء الثلاثاء الماضي، وقرروا أن يعتصموا بالاتحاد العام لعمال مصر منذ صباح الأربعاء، وفي أثناء تواجد أعضاء اللجنتين النقابيتين في الاتحاد العام لعمال مصر مساء يوم الثلاثاء، تم الإتصال بين المسئولين بالاتحاد ووزيرة القوي العاملة ووزير الاستثمار، وتم تحديد موعد لممثلي العمال (رئيسي اللجنتين النقابيتين) صباح الأربعاء، مع كلاً من رئيسي الشركتين القابضتسن للتشييد والتعمير والكيماوية، اللتان تملكان رأسمال بشركة شندلر، وذلك في حضور رئيس رئيس النقابة العامة للصناعات الهندسية، وتم الاتفاق علي الاتفاقية كما طلبها العمال، وتم توقيعها من قبل رئيس الشركة بعد ذلك، ومن أهم النقاط التي تم الاتفاق عليه هو:
1-شهران عن كل سنة خدمة علي الأجر الشامل، علي أن يكون الحد الأدني 14 ألف جنيه، والحد الأقصي 45 ألف جنيه.
2- إضافة أربع علاوات قديمة بقيمة 90 جنيه، وإضافة العلاوة الدورية الجديدة 15 جنيه، أي إضافة 105 جنيه علي أجر كل عامل ويتم احتساب مكافئة نهاية الخدمة بعد إضافة العلاوات.
3- صرف كل المتجمد القديم للعمال والإجازات بالكامل
علي أن تكون الأولوية عند البيع لحقوق العاملين
ويقول الأستاذ محمد عبد السلام رئيس نقابة العاملين بشركة شندلر وأحد الأطراف الأساسية في الاتفاق، بأنه قبل الوصول لهذا الاتفاق كان رئيس الشركة كان يرفض الحديث عن أي حقوق للعاملين، وقال أنه بعد البيع وسداد الديون وعلي أساس ما سيتبقي نتفق، وهو ما كان يعني ضياع حقوق العاملين، حيث أن الشركة مديونة بـ 282 مليون جنيه (منهم 60 مليون ضرائب، 24 مليون تأمينات)، ورأسمالها فقط 18 مليون جنيه، وذكر بأن ما كان مرصوداً لحقوق العاملين لم يتعدي 10 مليون جنيه، في حين أنه بعد الاتفاق وصل المخصص للعمال 30 مليون جنيه.

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