Photographers to demonstrate against police assaults

Posted on By 3arabawy

For the first time in their history, Egyptian photographers are getting together to demonstrate on Saturday 11am, in front of the Press Syndicate, against increased police assaults.

Photographers face attacks from police agents and the thugs they deploy in demos, who smash cameras, intimidate, physically assault, and detain photographers while performing their professional duties.

I’m not a professional photographer, but my camera also had its share of Mubarak’s police wrath. Police Captain Muhammad Bassiouny of Bandar Damanhour Police Station stole my camera after his thugs showered me with kicks as I was photographing them kidnapping voters in front of polling stations in Damanhour during the November 2005 parliamentary elections. The camera was returned to me after few days (photos deleted)–only to be smashed by police thugs in June 2006 as I was photographing them kidnapping anti-torture activists.

I’m personally excited about this protest, and will attend it. I hope to see as many of you there. Those brave photographers who played a crucial role in exposing police brutality against peaceful dissent deserve our support. The least we can do to help them is to show up at the syndicate and show them we care. It will boost their morale next time they are working in this war zone, formerly known as Downtown Cairo.

UPDATE: I received the following statement from the protest organizers…

We, Photojournalists and photographers working in Egypt, call on the Egyptian authorities to:
-Provide the needed security measures to protect photojournalists while performing their professional duties
-Protect photojournalists from the irresponsible actions taken by some police agents, that include encouraging thugs to physically assault photographers and smash their cameras. This has led to severe injuries among photographers: Our colleague Amr Nabil of AP has lost his right eye during covering the 2005 parliamentary elections; our colleague Khaled Gamal was subject to thugs’ assaults (in the presence of the security), while covering the trial of Emad el-Gelda. Last but not least, photographers are now banned from entering the Parliament, and cover its sessions.
These violations have to stop now.
Our protest is just the beginning of a campaign to retrieve our rights back.
We also express our solidarity with our Sudanese detained colleague in Guantanamo, Sami el-Haj, Al-Jazeera’s cameraman, and demand his immediate release.

Imbaba police abuse victim identified

Posted on By 3arabawy

Al-Masry Al-Youm’s investigative journalist Ali Zalat has managed to identify the victim of Imbaba police brutality video, one of the first to be leaked online in April 2006.

According to Thursday’s issue (which I bought an hour ago from a night news stand and should be available online in the morning), the victim is Ihab Magdi Farouk, a 19-year-old worker in a leather factory in El-Mounira El-Gharbeia district of Imbaba, Giza.

Ihab told Al-Masry Al-Youm he was detained by Police Corporals Ahmad Abdel Fattah and Ahmad el-Wardani, in Zaki Mattar Street as the police was breaking up a fight two summers ago. Ihab was then carrying a load of new leather bags. And of course if you look poor and carrying a load of new leather bags, then you cannot be a leather bags distributor (Ihab’s job), you must be a thief! So the two corporals locked him in Imbaba Police Station, till the leather factory owner showed up and explained Ihab had not stolen anything.

Fifteen days later, Ihab bumped into Corporal Ahmad el-Wardani in the street again. The latter just showered him with insults against his mother and family, and then the Corporal pulled out a knife, and dragged Ihab with the help of another police agent into a nearby marble cutting workshop, where they brutally beat him, with kicks and slaps. Then, Corporal Wardani took Ihab to the Imbaba Police Station, where Wardani, his colleague Corporal Abdel Fattah, and other agents kept on sadistically torturing him for two entire days: Ihab was blindfolded, slapped, kicked, whipped with a stick, under the supervision of the corporals and a police officer called Kareem. Before his release, Officer Kareem asked Corporal Abdel Fattah to shower Ihab with slaps, while Kareem was filming them for the fun of it.

Note there is still another leaked abuse video from Imbaba Police Station, and the victim is still unidentified, and the Interior Ministry did not announce any investigation into it yet, though the face of the Corporal is clear in the video.

And only God knows what else happens in that police station that was not caught on camera.

UPDATE: A scan of Al-Masry Al-Youm article.

Al-Masry Al-Youm Report

Ghazl Shebeen el-Kom Textile workers on strike

Posted on By 3arabawy

Work came to complete halt at Ghazl Shebeen el-Kom Textile Factory since yesterday 3pm, with around 3,000 workers staging a sit-in protesting their state management’s unfulfilled promises as the company goes into private ownership tomorrow.

I called one of the engineers currently on strike, and he told me the following:
-The work force of the factory is around 4,000 workers. None has broken the strike.
-The government owned company was sold to a multinational called Andurama three months ago, after a rotten evaluation of its assets, and the management hand over should officially happen tomorrow.
-The workers were promised 140-day bonuses (for fulfilling the production plan from July 2006 to 31 January 2007) to be paid as the deal is sealed, but when the morning shift workers went to receive their pay at 3pm, they were shocked to find that only a 45-day loan (not bonus) was awaiting them. They refused to receive the pay, and staged a sit in, as the afternoon shift workers were coming in. The latter, when informed of what happened, joined the sit in and refused to work, demanding to meet any government official to get an explanation for the unfulfilled promises. The company should have sent out buses to pick up the night shift workers, but it didn’t. So the night shift workers came on their expense to the factory to join their colleagues’ strike.
-From a total of 4,000 workforce, there are between 2,500 to 3,000 who are actively present on the factory floor and taking part in the open-ended occupation.
-The workers were promised 12% shares of the factory on privatization. Up till this moment, no official explained to the workers the details of the agreement.
-And just like the case of Ghazl el-Mahalla strike, the Factory Union Committee is standing against the strike, I was told by the engineer I spoke to who also charged that the union members received their full bonuses, and told the workers “go away, we received our bonuses. There’s nothing we can do for you.”

A report in Arabic is available on Kefaya’s website.