Water Station workers in Qena demand the impeachment of their corrupt management, shouting the same slogan protesters in Tahrir were chanting against Hosni Mubarak: إرحل! إرحل! Leave! Leave!

Only strikes can unite us…

A woman was killed and another injured in the southern city of Qena after they stood in the way of a bulldozer that was demolishing a home built without a permit, a security official said on Monday.
The two women, whose family had moved onto the land and built a home there, were protesting against the demolition, which followed a court order. It was not clear whether the two women were inside the house or standing by the fence surrounding the house.

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.

Cases of repression by the Egyptian Government against the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS), an independent civil society organization committed to defending trade union and other workers’ rights in Egypt, have occurred recently in Egypt. The ITUC is concerned in particular about the decision to shut down the CTUWS branch in Naj Hamadi, in Southern Egypt. CTUWS staffs have also been intimidated in the Mahalla City branch office.
An official from the Social Solidarity Regional Office, who was under instruction to file a report on this subject with his ministry, investigated the CTUWS work and the nature of its activities while the the CTUWS Branch of Naj Hamadi was shut down by Administrative Decision issued on Thursday 29 March 2007 by General Al Sherbeeny Hasheesh, Chairman of the City of Naj Hamadi.
In a letter sent to the authorities, the ITUC urge Hosni Mubarak, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, to issue instructions to the relevant governmental bodies to rescind the restrictions and other measures imposed on the CTUWS.

The HMLC is located: 1 Souq el-Tawfiqiya St, Fifth Floor.

The Socialist Alliance and the Leftist Union (two umbrella organizations that coordinate between revolutionary and reformist leftist factions) have already come out with a statement in solidarity with the CTUWS.

And here is a Daily Star Egypt report on the government crackdown against Upper Egyptian labor activists:

A coalition of 37 civil society organizations has called on the governor of the Upper Egyptian province of Qena to re-open the offices of a workers rights organization which was closed by the city government of Nagaa Hammadi last week.
The local branch office of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) was closed on Thursday, March 29, after an order to shut down the group was issued by the Chairman of the City, General Al Sherbeeny Hasheesh.
A broad range of Egyptian civil society organizations have endorsed the call for solidarity with the CTUWS, including the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

“It’s the same scenario of Naga’a Hammadi, being repeated again in Mahalla,” Kamal told me. “A wave of security crackdowns on the labor movement is to be expected.”

The Hisham Mubarak Law Center called for a meeting this Thursday 5pm, where activists will be discussing a solidarity campaign with the CTUWS. The center is located at: 1 Souq el-Tawfiqiya St., off Ramses Street.