Socialist lawyer Haitham Mohammadein, calming down Tarek Mostafa, assuring the latter the free union papers were received by the Labor Ministry’s officials.
Tag: هيثم محمدين
Suez pig gets 15 years for murder
Sarah Carr reports:
A low ranking police officer who fatally shot a man has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
Alaa Tharwat Abdel Maqsoud was convicted yesterday by a court in Suez of murdering Muhammad Nasr Ibrahim.
According to the Torture in Egypt website, Ibrahim, a milkman was killed after an altercation over a driving license which occurred in a public square in Suez in 2007.
Ibrahim’s license application procedures had not been completed when he was stopped by Abdel Maqsoud while riding a motorbike, and was unable to hand over a license when Ibrahim demanded one of him.
Abdel Maqsoud responded by attempting to confiscate Ibrahim’s motorbike. When the latter refused, Abdel Maqsoud shot him in the neck at point blank range.
Abdel Maqsoud pleaded self-defense during the trial.
The heavy prison sentence is unusual in Egypt, where violations by the police are routine but officers rarely held to account, or handed down relatively light sentences.
Haitham Mohamadein, a lawyer with the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Violence who represented the victim’s family, told Daily News Egypt that he attributes the sentence to the “large numbers of eyewitnesses” who saw the incident and “the extremely narrow margin available for tampering with evidence”.
Independent Union constitutional, says lawyer
Sarah Carr reports…
The Independent General Union of Real Estate Tax Collectors has refuted suggestions made by Hussein Megawer, head of the Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (EFTU), that the Independent Union was created in violation of the law.
Al-Masry Al-Youm quotes anonymous sources as saying that Megawer has sent a letter to Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali requesting that the Finance Minister not acknowledge the Independent Union, and that he deal exclusively with the General Union of Employees of the Banking, Insurance and Financial Sectors.
This official union is one of the 23 unions created under the umbrella of the state-controlled EFTU.
Workers in various sectors — including real estate tax collectors — are strongly critical of state-controlled trade union bodies which they allege represent the state’s, rather than workers’ interests.
In December 2008 real estate tax collectors announced the formation of the Independent Union.
The union grew out of the committee formed to represent tax collectors’ interests during the successful three-month strike and sit-in they led outside the Finance Ministry at the end of December 2007.
Haitham Muhammadein, the union’s official lawyer, told Daily News Egypt that Megawer made his comments after Ghali sent a letter to the Independent Union.
“The Independent Union sent two letters to the Finance Minister in which it listed various demands,” Muhammadein said.
“Last month Ghali wrote back addressing his letter to ‘the Independent Union’ – thereby acknowledging its existence.
“This acknowledgment made Megawer worried and prompted him to address this demand to Ghali.”
Muhammadein maintains that there is no basis in law for Megawer’s suggestion that Egyptian legislation prohibits the creation of trade unions outside the framework of the official trade union.
“Various treaties ratified by Egypt such as ILO Convention 87 on freedom of association and the right to organize provide for workers’ right to form their own trade union bodies.
“Egyptian Law 35 issued in 1976 meanwhile states that workers have the right to form a trade union body, but within the framework of the EFTU.
“Law 35 is arguably unconstitutional because it conflicts with both Article 56 of the Egyptian Constitution [which provides that ‘the creation of syndicates and unions on a democratic basis is a right guaranteed by law’] and the treaties ratified by Egypt.
“Once ratified, these treaties are incorporated into, and become part of, domestic law.”
Muhammadein suggests that Ghali has no choice but to deal with the Independent Union.
“This organized force is what really represents the real estate tax collectors: the official trade union has consistently shown itself to be ineffective,” Muhammadein explained.
“Tax collectors stand behind the Independent Union – Ghali has no choice but to deal with it.
“Megawer is unable to challenge the Independent Union so he’s gone to the Finance Minister, but if [Megawer] is unable to represent workers’ interests adequately, that’s the EFTU’s problem, not ours.”