Aid workers to enter into hunger strike at Rafah-Gaza border
18/05/2009
British, Belgian and Greek doctors, nurses and aid workers will go on hunger strike tomorrow over the Egyptian Authorities’ refusal to allow entry into Gaza.
After constant attempts aid workers, doctors and nurses, have been refused entry in to the Gaza strip by the Egyptian authorities. Some doctors have been waiting for forty days. Out of utter desperation and witnessing the treatment of Palestinians by the Egyptian authorities, aid workers and activists have been left with no choice except to go into hunger strike and stay at the Rafah crossing until they are allowed through into Gaza.
Although the Egyptian authorities had said the border was open for two days the fact is that non-Palestinians were not allowed to enter, even though some were Palestinian but held different nationalities.
Contact Dr Omar Mangoush
Tel: 0020193764783
Assed Baig
0020178126819

I thought of sharing some miscellaneous notes from the meeting:

– A worker speaking in a high-pitched voice: “In Port Said we had no strikes, no nothing (few years ago). But we learned from Mahalla. We read about what they did. Everybody did. They were in the newspapers. People talked a lot, and when one speaks about something, the talk spreads around fast….”
The worker went on explaining how Mahalla was a source of inspiration, and started giving examples of strikes and sit-ins in his company (which I won’t mention for now), but I was then intrigued to hear him addressing other strike leaders:
“I’m glad I met all of you today. We do need national coordination. But why don’t we also have a website? We can put information about all our problems on that website, including our statements. Then instead of distributing the statements in the factories, which is very dangerous, we can just distribute the website address among the workers and tell them to check it on the net. If the workers don’t have computers at home, then they can go to cyber-cafe to check it out.”

– A veteran labor organizer from Giza addressing the strike leaders: “You should not be afraid from the police. They make threats all the time to deter you from doing the right thing. You can be immune only if you have the backing of your fellow workers in the factory. If you have support in the factory or in your workplace they won’t be able to touch you. Look at the leaders of the Tax Collectors. Why didn’t they just “disappear” them? Why didn’t they “send them behind the sun” as they always threaten?”
“Mister, we are already behind the sun,” interrupted a Mahalla textile worker. “Don’t worry, we are not afraid. What have we to lose? Please move on to the next subject.”

– “All men of religion work for State Security police,” thundered a Coptic worker from the Steel Mills who had gone on a hunger strike and only suspended it after SS brought priests from his neighborhood to convince him what he was doing was “ungodly” promising to intervene on his behalf. “I suspended my strike. All promises they gave me turned out to be lies. The priests and State Security have lied to me and do not care about me. I am trying to get the support of my colleagues to solve my problems (with the management). I have no one to seek help from except my colleagues, whether they were Christians or Muslims.”

Seventeen inmates at Borg El Arab Prison in Alexandria, were physically attacked by prison guards on Tuesday to force them to end the hunger strike they began on Monday, a rights advocate and lawyer told Daily News Egypt.
“Prison guards entered their cells on Tuesday and started beating them,” said lawyer Ahmad Ezzat from the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, who represents some of the detainees.
“When I went to see them on Saturday they told me about the assault but I was unable to gauge the full extent of their injuries because they would have had to remove their clothes for examination,” he continued.
The 17 men are all being held in detention under emergency law. They began the hunger strike in protest at being held without charge, but called it off after the alleged assault.
Rights groups have repeatedly condemned the Egyptian government’s continued renewal of the 27-year-old state of emergency which empowers security bodies to search, arrest and detain people without respecting due process guarantees.
According to the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, thousands of individuals are being held without charge in continually-renewed administrative detention.
Nine of the seventeen men are being held in connection with the clashes which broke out in the Delta town of Mahalla on April 6 and 7, 2008 when security bodies violently quashed demonstrations against rising food prices.
A public prosecution office ordered their release on June 2. The order was not carried out, and administrative detention orders were issued against them on June 5, 2008.
Last week the Mahalla public prosecution office referred 49 individuals, including the nine assaulted on Tuesday, for trial in a state security court on what their lawyers allege are trumped-up charges.
It is believed that the first hearing will take place in August.

Here’s also an AFP report about the prison assaults, and it seems another hunger strike has broken out at Abu Zaabal I Prison over ill-treatment, the banning of visits and the lack of drinking water.