Check out a report and watch some pix, by this blog, of the Center for Socialist Studies’ celebrations of the Ghazl el-Mahalla workers’ release.
And here are some more pix:
Tag: detainees
Released labor activist vows to pursue the battle
From the Los Angeles Times, by Noha El-Henawy:
He was grabbing a cup of coffee at the factory cafeteria less than two years ago when he heard the call for a strike. “I wondered then what the term strike meant,” recalls Karim El-Beheiry. On his way out of the factory, he heard a fellow tell the press: “I don’t have enough money to satisfy the needs of my son.”
“I cried when I heard that,” remembers El-Beheiry, “and eventually decided to join the strike.”
The words stuck with El-Beheiry until they turned him from a disengaged lay worker into a prominent blogger and labor activist. But he did not know that his dedication to workers’ rights would cost him more than 50 days of imprisonment and torture for allegedly instigating a riot in April, at Mahalla town, the site of Egypt’s biggest spinning and textile factory and the stronghold of the nation’s labor force.
Upon his release, El-Beheiry affirmed to The Times that his experience behind bars, though painful, made him more determined about his cause. “Jail never changes ideas. Coercion and torture makes the person stronger. I love this country and I refuse to give up my rights,” El-Beheiry told The Times over the phone from Mahalla, about 75 miles north of Cairo.
The Mahalla factory has been the scene of several strikes over wages for the last two years. The first derupted in December 2006, when El-Beheiry was first introduced to the notion of labor advocacy. Since then, the 23-year-old worker has been mentored by leftist labor leaders until he eventually embraced a socialist ethos. His devotion was translated into the launching of two blogs (Egyworkers and Watch out You are Now in Egypt) to promote a labor-oriented agenda.
However, his concern with workers’ demands drew his attention to Egypt’s different malaises, he says. “All I had in mind was the labor question and how to retrieve my rights as a worker. However, my concern became broader and expanded from just asking for my rights to asking for civil liberties and freedom of expression,” he explains.
The unrest at the Mahalla factory culminated in a riot April 6 in which two people were killed and more than 100 wounded after police clashed with demonstrators, shooting rubber bullets and throwing tear gas bombs. Holding his camera, El-Beheiry recorded the violence and filed updates over the phone to local and international news organizations until he was caught off guard by police, who kept him in custody until Saturday.
“The first three days in custody were the worst three days in my life. They were days of torture, oppression and coercion,” says El-Beheiry, adding that he had his hands and legs cuffed and was kept blindfolded without food or water for three days.
“They wanted me to let on to other people and to make certain confessions. They tried everything with me but they did not get anything,” he recounts.
El-Beheiry declines to provide details on the way he was allegedly tortured. “I don’t want to remember those days. When I recall those moments, I cry not out of weakness but out of my inability to believe that a human being can get audacious enough to do that to another human being and that Egypt has become this police state.”
However, earlier, El-Beheiry told Agence France-Presse that he was subjected to beatings and electric shocks. “They would give you improper food. They would put their fingers in your food or throw it with their feet to you,” he recounts.
Egypt has recently witnessed several protests over inflation, which has raised the specter of public unrest, putting President Hosni Mubarak’s regime under unprecedented pressure. Young bloggers and Facebook activists have recently come to the fore as the main mobilizers of anti-Mubarak protests.
“Egypt is shaking and the people started to feel pressured. At one point they will explode out of hunger and their explosion will be catastrophic,” warns El-Beheiry.
Despite state retaliation, El-Beheiry vows to pursue the battle on the blogosphere. “I will never stop blogging; I will keep blogging about the labor moment even if it costs my life,” he affirms. “Facebook activists and bloggers carry Egypt’s hopes and they are the ones who retrieve freedom for Egyptians.”
Updates on the detainees
I received an email from Kareem. He’s fine alhamdolilah, and back with his family. He’d also like to send his regards to all the comrades around the world who stood in solidarity with him and the Ghazl el-Mahalla detainees.
Here’s also a report by Sarah Carr:
Three men detained in connection with the events of April 6 in Mahalla were released Saturday, lawyer Ahmad Ezzat told Daily News Egypt.
Kamel El-Fayyoumy, Karim El-Beheiry and Tareq Amin arrived home at 1 am early Sunday morning after their release, said Ezzat.
The men were being held in the Borg El-Arab prison where they had launched a hunger strike in protest at their detention.
El-Beheiry was arrested after he received a phone call from someone claiming to be from the BBC who requested a meeting.
When he, together with Amin, went to the meeting point both men were arrested by members of state security.
El-Fayyoumy was arrested separately.
El-Beheiry said in a joint letter subsequently sent out by the three men that he was tortured while being held at the Mahalla state security headquarters on April 7.
All three men were involved in the organization of a strike in the Ghazl El-Mahalla factory planned for the same day, which collapsed following worker disunity and intimidation by security bodies.
Violence subsequently erupted in the Delta town after security bodies clashed with residents protesting increasing food prices.
El-Fayyoumy, Amin and El-Beheiry were dismissed from their employment in the factory shortly after their arrest.
A court ordered their release on the April 21 during its examination of the cases of 204 individuals arrested in connection with the events in Mahalla.
Twenty-five of this group of 204 were issued detention orders after the court ordered their release — including El-Beheiry, El-Fayyoumy and Amin.
The Interior Ministry ordered the release of a total of 11 individuals on Saturday arrested in connection with the events in Mahalla.
Sami Francis and Fathy Hefnawy remain in El-Marg prison, Cairo.
The two men are members of opposition group Kefaya and were arrested on charges of inciting the April 6 general strike.
The strike was called for by opposition political parties and other activists via Facebook, in protest against corruption and rising food prices.
In addition, 42 individuals remain in preventative custody in connection with the events of Mahalla. The release of 10 of these 42 individuals was ordered yesterday at 2 pm.
They were in the El-Gharbeia security division in preparation for their release at time of press.
This group have been charged with rioting, illegal possession of firearms and theft, among other charges.
Following the events in Mahalla — during which a 15-year-old boy standing on a third floor balcony was shot dead, allegedly killed by police using live ammunition — state-run newspaper and television reports stated that the violence which erupted in the Delta town was caused by rioting criminals.
Rights groups and members of the independent media who witnessed the events allege that the police used unnecessary force against a peaceful, unplanned demonstration against rising food prices which had emerged spontaneously.
State-run media pointed to the damage committed against a school in Mahalla in support of government claims that the crowds which gathered on April 6 and 7 did so in order to commit criminal acts.
However, eyewitnesses interviewed by Daily News Egypt in April alleged that the damage to the school and the theft of its equipment occurred while police forces watched, and that the vandalism was in fact, orchestrated.
Ezzat alleges that the group are victims of trumped-up charges.
Also still in detention is Muhammad Maree.
Marei was arrested in Mahalla with US photojournalist James Buck on April 10.
He has been moved from the Borg El-Arab prison to Mansoura prison, where he is being allowed to sit exams.
Marei, a student of veterinary science, was translating for Buck when both men were detained while speaking to relatives of the hundreds detained on April 6 and 7.
While Buck was eventually released, Marei was not.
He subsequently disappeared before being taken to Borg El-Arab prison, where he is being held on charges of riotous assembly with more than five people of a nature to disturb public order.
More updates on the detainees on HMLC blog.