The Center for Trade Union Rights held a press conference today, slamming the Egyptian General Federation of Trade Unions which mobilized its thugs attempting to disrupt the event held at Cairo’s Journalists’ Syndicate.

The Helwan-based labor rights NGO and its director, leftist activist Kamal Abbas, have been coming under vicious campaign from the Ministry of Labor and the government’s Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions. After initially blaming the Muslim Brothers for instigating the strikes (I had a good laugh with this one, I gotta say), the state-owned media has been up in arms left and right talking about Kamal Abbas and his NGO. The Ministry of Labor and its yellow union suddenly discovered a “plot by rogue unpatriotic elements, who get funding from abroad” standing behind the recent spate of strikes.

The campaign is escalating in the media against Kamal, and there are serious concerns the NGO will be closed down. In response, labor and human rights activists held a press conference today at the Journalists’ Syndicate to fend off the govt allegations.

At 11am, one hour before the scheduled conference, a group of General Federation of Trade Union officials, led by the infamous Tagammu bureaucrat and Member of Shura Council (Upper House) Abdel Rahman Kheir, who heads the General Union of Military Industries, accompanied by around 50 thugs, stormed the Journalists’ Syndicate and occupied the conference hall for more than an hour. They chanted “Long Live Egypt’s Workers! Down with the (Foreign) Agents!”

The thugs only left, when the panicking Journalists’ Syndicate officials told them Kamal Abbas’s conference was cancelled. So they left, only to return again after the press conf started an hour later. The Syndicate closed its doors fearing clashes, while the press conf proceeded.

Kamal lashed out at his govt critics, accusing the General Federation officials of winning their union seats by electoral fraud. He spoke extensively of how labor unions today have turned into a tool in the regime’s hand and not representing the workers’ interests any more.

“Even Saeed el-Gohary (head of General Union of Textile Workers), who came originally from the Ghazl Shebeen el-Kom Company, and his house is close to the factory, was heckled by the strikers when he tried to disperse them as their ‘representative,'” said Kamal. “Can we say he represents Egypt’s textile workers?”

Hafez Abu Saeda, the secretary-general of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, showed up to express solidarity with Kamal. “If Kamal stands behind all those strikes,” he said mocking the Ministry of Labor accusations, “then may be the govt should negotiate with him since that would make him the true representative of Egypt’s working class.”

Leftist lawyer Khaled Ali kept on discrediting the govt’s accusations one after the other, and went on the attack. “The Federation knows who takes money from abroad and then squanders it on fraud and illusionary projects,” he said listing several fraud projects the Federation had embarked on, using foreign aid money.

Sayyed Radi, the head of the Tagammu Party’s labor secretariat, arrived to the conference in a hurry, and it was clear he was panicking and shaking. “The Tagammu supports the working class and the country’s poor in their struggle,” he said, and kept on mumbling a speech. My guess is he came over to save his party’s face after the Abdel Rahman Kheir’s fiasco.

Every few minutes, the press conf would be interrupted by some Journalists’ Syndicate official who would whisper to Kamal that he has to sum up as fast as possible because of the Federation thugs who casused the syndicate’s closure.

The conference was over close to 2pm. It took us sometime to go outside, as the doors were still closed fearing confrontation with the Federation officials assembling outside. Few angry shouts were exchanged between the labor activists and the Federation officials, before everyone dispersed peacefully.