Tag: military tribunals

Labor protests intensify during first half of 2011

Posted on 04/07/201126/02/2021 By 3arabawy

During the first half of 2011, there have been 338 sit-ins, 158 strikes, 259 demonstrations and 161 protests by workers, all demanding better working conditions, according to a report by a human rights group.
Awlad Al-Ard Association for Human Rights compiled and analyzed the activities of workers during the first half of 2011, finding that 11,077 workers have been terminated from their jobs while 22 were arrested and referred to military or civil courts.
Twelve workers have committed suicide because they could not endure the hardships of their conditions, the report said.
In a section titled “Workers and the Revolution,” the report stated that ever since the privatization policies of 2004 and up until the January 25 Revolution, there have been thousands of demonstrations by workers along with numerous detentions and jail sentences.
In the last four years, more than 300,000 workers in Egypt lost their jobs.
More than 51 percent of demonstrations, strikes, protests and sit-ins in the first half of 2011 happened in the weeks before the end of February, amid an 18-day uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11.

More resources could be found in the Egyptian workers Diigo group.

Egypt’s labor movement under attack

Posted on 24/06/201126/02/2021 By 3arabawy

In the first three weeks of June, at least 22 workers and farmers have been interrogated by the military prosecutor and/or referred to military courts, according to the Awlad el-Ard NGO.

On Saturday, 10 am, activists will be holding a protest in front of the State Council, in Dokki, in solidarity with Ali Fetouh, the president of the independent union of public transport workers, who is undergoing trial over charges of “inciting strikes.” Fetouh has also received international support from trade unionists in the UK.

The continued crackdown on the labor movement is taking place while the International Labor Organization is awarding our military junta by taking Egypt off its black list. For the ILO, it seems, military tribunals and anti-strike laws mean nothing other than the Egyptian workers are now free.

“We didn’t have this revolution to replace Mubarak with the military as a taboo”

Posted on 23/06/201126/02/2021 By 3arabawy

From Reuters:

Hossam el-Hamalawy is used to being in trouble with the authorities. State security hauled him in three times for his activism when Hosni Mubarak was in power. He hoped Egypt’s uprising would end such summonses. It didn’t.
He was called in again in May for questioning. But one element changed. It wasn’t internal security but an army general who wanted to question the blogger over accusations he made on television about abuses by the military police.
“We didn’t have this revolution … so that we would replace Hosni Mubarak with the military as a taboo,” said Hamalawy, insisting that the army must change its ways.
“The military institution is part of the old regime,” he said. “It will have to go through its own change in revolutionary Egypt.”
Quite what that change might look like is perhaps the biggest question facing Egyptians now.
The army has vowed to hand power to civilians, after it took took control when Mubarak was ousted on Feb. 11.
Few doubt it wants to quit the grimy world of day-to-day government but, at the same time, few expect the generals to submit to civilian command when they return to barracks.
Instead, analysts say the military is likely to slip into the political shadows, as a protector of national security — a broad brief that would allow some back-seat intervention — and rigorously guard its business interests and other privileges.
The military has after all supplied Egypt’s rulers, including former air force commander Mubarak, for six decades.
“I do feel they are sincere about handing over power to a civilian government,” said Hamalawy, who writes the arabawy.org blog. “But that does not mean they will give up … their role in the Egypt political arena.”
After summons for interrogation prompted protests, Hamalawy said the general who quizzed him on May 31 promised to examine evidence he provided of any abuses by the military police.