Activists have called for a sit-in, protesting the government crack down on the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services offices in Helwan, Mahalla and Naga’a Hammadi, tomorrow Thursday 1pm, in front of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Ramses St.
Tag: helwan
Closure of CTUWS office in Helwan
A report by Reuters:
Egypt police close down workers’ rights group
CAIRO, April 25 – Egyptian police closed down on Wednesday the headquarters of an independent organization which gives legal advice to workers and unofficial trade unions, one of the founders of the organization said.
Rahma Rifaat, a lawyer and workers’ rights activist, told Reuters four truckloads of police evicted all 30 people from the headquarters of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) in Helwan, an industrial suburb of Cairo.
“Of course there was some arguing and pulling and shoving, but in the end their strength was much greater than ours, and so they threw us out of the place … then they closed the place down and sealed it with red wax,” she said.
She said the police did not have the correct authorisation for the operation from any government ministry.
The Interior Ministry, which controls the police force, said it had no comment on the operation in Helwan.
The campaign against the organization coincided with a wave of unofficial strikes across Egypt, especially in the textile sector. In many cases owners and managers have ended the strikes quickly by satisfying the strikers’ demands.
Egyptian authorities have already closed down two branches of the organization — one in the southern town of Naga Hammadi, which has several large factories, and the other in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla, a major center for the textile industry.
Police also closed a smaller branch office in Helwan on Wednesday, leaving the organization with only one branch, in industrial Tenth of Ramadan City, east of Cairo, Rifaat said.
State Security raid CTUWS Helwan office
As I’m writing now, Security forces are inside the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS) office in Helwan. The Center has come under siege of at least four Central Security Forces trucks, loaded with conscripts, battalions of plainclothes, and swarms of State Security police agents.
There’s a group of activists inside the Center, who refused the eviction order, but they were outnumbered of course by the police thugs, who are now confiscating the furniture and all the items inside the office.
I’ll update the posting, when I receive more details.
UPDATE: In a statement I received from the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture about the assault, the activists said that:
It is worth noting that the police force showed no official document of closure and said they have “oral orders” to close the place.