Hossam el-Hamalawy
Videogate continues. Two new video clips have surfaced online, purportedly showing a detainee being tortured in Port Said’s Dawahi Police Station, by Officer Muhammad Abu Ghazala the station’s Chief of Criminal Investigations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C65isljLU0
Two textile workers from Abul Sebae factory have been detained by the police this morning around 8am as they tried to enter the company compound, according to a Mahalla labor source. The two were among the leaders of the recent series of industrial actions and protests in their company, and the Mahalla source I spoke with said the two were taken to Mahalla’s 1st Police Station, where fabricated charges of “theft” were leveled against them.
One worker is named Abdel Halim Mahmoud, while the other’s is still unknown.
The Abul Sebae company is part of the US-Israeli-Egyptian QIZ partnership and exports towels to Israel.
More updates soon.
UPDATE: The two are still kept in Mahalla’s 1st Police Station. It turned out they were sacked on Saturday by the management for their involvement in the strikes. The workers went on Sunday morning to the company to inquire about and protest the decision, but were nabbed by the police while entering the company.
“They were accused of stealing cables,” said a Mahlla labor source. “These are fabrications. Abul Sebae cooked it up with the police. They wanted to get rid of them because of the sit-ins and the strikes.”
One worker is called: Abdel Halim Mahmoud Sayyed Ahmad, but we only know the first name of the second worker, Abdel Moneim.
Solidarity needed with the three detained Egyptian bloggers: Ahmad Abu Khalil, Magdi Saad, Abdel Rahman Ayyash.
Amnesty International has also issued a statement calling for the immediate release of Bloggers Musa’ad Abul Fagr and Kareem Amer.