Hundreds of chicken farmers demonstrated on Friday, blocking the road in front of the State TV building and the 6th of October bridge, demanding an end to police brutality against them. The farmers also accused the police of confiscating their live stock, without compensation, under the excuse of fighting avian flu, and selling them to the slaughterhouses. The farmers were also complaining about the continued bribes they were forced to pay the policemen, leading in the end to the rise of the prices of chicken and other live stock they are trading in to make up for their losses.

Farmers and activists held a rally outside the General Prosecutor’s Office at the High Court in Cairo, in protest at the detention of ten protesters – five farmers, three auto workers, two Azhar students – during a demonstration last Wednesday. Bail for the detainees had been set at LE10,000 per person, but after this rally lawyers announced that all ten would be released without bail.

Police is trying to smash the Bani Sweif Cement workers strike, detaining three workers and tearing down the tents set up by the strikers.

And in Cairo, the public prosecutor has ordered 10 protesters (five farmers, three auto workers and two students) to remain in police custody for 15 days, following their arrest last Wednesday during their sit ins in downtown Cairo.

UPDATE: Per blogs about Egypt’s neoliberal counter-revolution.

Land disputes in the first half of 2010 resulted in 130 farmers killed, 850 wounded and the imprisonment of another 1234.