Tag: detainees

Police kidnap labor activist

Posted on By 3arabawy

Police kidnapped Muhammad Hassan, an activist with Workers For Change, an hour ago in front of the General Federation of Trade Unions HQ in Cairo. Hassan was distributing leaflets denouncing the security intervention in the labor unions electoral process, and warning of serious vote rigging to come. Security personnel nabbed him, and took him to al-Azbakeya Police Station which has a notorious history of police brutality.

Hassan is still locked up at this moment.

Meanwhile, 25 transportation workers are currently on a sit in inside the Federation’s HQ, protesting the hassels they are facing from the union bureaucracy in issuing their “candidacy certificate” (one of the red tape procedures a union candidate has to go through). And 13 other left-leaning workers from the Helwan steel mills have been eliminated from the candidacy list by State Security.

Workers For Change are calling for a demo, Monday 1 pm in front of the Public Prosecutor office in Ramses St., to protest the violations by the security services.

UPDATE: Muhammad Hassan has been released, after he was kept for three hours in police custody.

Sinai leftist released

Posted on By 3arabawy

Hassan Abdallah, the coordinator of Sinai’s Youth For Change, has been released few hours ago and is on his way home to Al-Arish, according to Kefaya’s website.

Tagammu Party Office in Arish

Hassan was detained by State Security in Arish on 7 September, then transferred to Bourg el-Arab prison in Alexandria, with no access to lawyers or family visits. His two brothers Wael and Muhammad have been taking refuge in the Tagammu’s office in Arish, after State Security officers threatened to kill them.

Interview with former armed Nasserist activist

Posted on By 3arabawy

Kefaya’s website has posted an exclusive interview with Nazmi Shahin, member of Egypt’s Revolution group, who was involved in armed operations against CIA and Mossad agents in Cairo.

The armed organization was founded by Nasserist army and intelligence officers in the beginning of the 1980s. They managed to kill two Mossad agents in August 1985 and March 1986. Their other two operations failed however: One in 1984, when they tried to assassinate an Israeli agent, the other was in 1987 when they tried to target the CIA Middle East Station Chief, who escaped with a head injury according to the interview.

The members of the organization were rounded up by the government in 1987, and were BRUTALLY tortured by the security services. They were given harsh long prison sentences in 1991. The group’s founder, former intelligence officer Mahmoud Nour Eddin, died in prison in 1998 due to maltreatment, while the rest of the activists were released around 2002.

Most of the group’s members spent their years of incarceration in solitary confinement. For example, Nazmi Shahin, the former army officer, spent 14 out of his 15 years alone in his cell.

You can read the interview here and here.