Tag: protests

Factory workers protest 15-month salary delay

Posted on 10/07/200828/03/2015 By 3arabawy

Some 100 workers from the Strow Misr company and their children gathered on Sunday in Dokki, Cairo, protesting the failure of the company’s management to pay them for over 15 months.
The protest was held outside the office of former Egyptian Prime Minister and Strow Misr executive director, Ali Lotfy, to coincide with a general assembly meeting.
Strow Misr — located in 10th of Ramadan City and which was put into liquidation in March 2007 — was the only factory in the Middle East producing Citric Acid, used in foodstuffs and carbonated drinks such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
“Management told us in December 2006 that the company was making losses and that they were considering putting it into liquidation,” Medhat Muhammad, a Strow Misr employee who joined the company in the late 1980s told Daily News Egypt.
The decision to put the company into liquidation was announced in March 2007.
Muhammad says that the factory’s 247 workers have not been paid salaries, or received any sort of redundancy compensation, since the company’s liquidation in 2007.
“How the only company in the Arab region producing such a vital ingredient can make a loss is baffling: even if we worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week we would never fulfil the Coca-Cola order alone.”
“The only explanation is that the factory was mismanaged, but this isn’t a matter which concerns us. If they want to put the company into liquidation, fine — but give us what is rightfully ours,” Muhammad continued.
He alleges that senior management are benefiting from the protracted process of liquidation.
“About 15 or 20 members of senior management continue to receive salaries while factory floor workers are getting nothing,” Muhammad told Daily News Egypt.
Talks between company management and workers ended Sunday with a promise from Lotfy that workers would receive the payments they are entitled to on Aug. 15, 2008.
“This isn’t the first time we have received such promises but we’ll wait until August, see what happens, and act accordingly,” Muhammad said.

Press rallies in support of persecuted colleague

Posted on 10/07/200801/01/2021 By 3arabawy

Michaela Singer reports:

Standing on the steps of the Journalists’ Syndicate, press and activists — led by the Head of the Freedom Committee Muhammad Abdel Qoddous — voiced Monday their support for Al-Fajr journalist Kamal Murad, who was assaulted and arrested by police last month.
Activists leading the demonstration called for the cessation of police attacks on journalists and immediate government intervention into Murad’s case, stating that, “aggression on a Fajr journalist is aggression on all journalists” and “police attacks of journalists is nothing but a settling of scores.”
They also called on the Ministry of Interior to clarify the laws that govern press freedoms stating that the constitution permits freedom of opinion and press.
Murad, 28, was reportedly assaulted by police as he took pictures of the eviction of Ezbet El-Muharram farmers in Rahmaniya on June 17.
Although attacks against journalists are not uncommon in Egypt, Murad believes he was victimized by police after they discovered his identity as the journalist is known for his coverage of the Emad El-Kabir rape case. El-Kabir was raped and tortured by police while being held in custody.
Murad told Daily News Egypt that he witnessed police and land gangs force farmers to sign leases prior to their immediate eviction. They then humiliated male farmers by forcing them to strip to their underclothes, while the women were dragged along dirt tracks.
“I was taking pictures of gang leader Abu Khiyar and police drinking tea together, and being served kebabs while they watched their colleagues terrorize the farmers. When they saw me, they assaulted me before taking my [camera’s] memory card.”
Murad was forced into police truck, known as the box, for three hours, where he was denied water, before taking him to a police station.
“When I got to the police station they made a report against me, fabricated entirely by investigation officer Amro Allam. He claimed that it was I who had assaulted police officers and agitated farmers against police. I asked to see the head of the station, but was told there was none.”

By the way, Officer Muhammad Bassiouny, who’s involved in the assault and listed as number 4 in the above photo, is the same pig who assaulted me and stole my camera while I was photographing the police plainclothes thugs kidnapping voters in front an electoral station in Damanhour during the November 2005 elections.

Labor Updates: Sit-ins, protests

Posted on 08/07/200807/02/2021 By 3arabawy

Tadamon reports that three hundred River Transportation Company workers, who had accepted early buyouts, are staging a sit-in at the Maadi Cornish, protesting the pathetic sums of money they were paid and which couldn’t help them cope with the skyrocketing prices.

And here is a report on the a protest staged in Dokki by workers from the 10th of Ramadan city demanding their salaries, unpaid for the past 20 months!