Popular Committees in Sharqiya are running security, protecting public property, organizing traffic.

Continuous updates on police torture are available on the Torture in Egypt Blog and Diigo group.

Officers and sergeants from Crime Investigations, State Security, Central Security Forces and University Guards Units are also profiled in the Piggipedia Flickr group.

300 workers at Salamco Spinning & Weaving in 10th of Ramadan city has been on strike for 12 days, al-Youm al-Sabe3 reports. They are threatening to go on hunger strike and cutting the road to Ismailia if their demands are not realized, saying that they have not been paid since January. According to a representative of the local union, the owner of the factory has “disappeared” and negotiations are conducted over phone only. The owner is apparently intending to close down the factory. Workers say they previously tried to go to his home in Masr el-Gadida to demonstrate outside but were prevented by security.

Sharqiya has roughly 7,000 real estate tax collectors, working in 22 local offices scattered across the eastern Nile Delta province, in addition to a main directorate in Zagazig, the provincial capital. Recalling the December 2007 occupation, Ahmad says.

Everyone (in Sharqiya) was afraid in the beginning. They were scared of their bosses and from what State Security could do. At the first day of the occupation (in downtown Cairo) I was more or less alone – I was the only one from Sharqiya. But then as time passed, and as the (Hussein Higazi St) camp stood fast, delegation after the other started coming down from the (Sharqiya) province…
The people (tax collectors in Sharqiya) are not scared anymore. In the past, they used to, but now not anymore. Everyone is happy and proud of what we did in the strike… But this is not the end…. We still have rights and promises unfulfilled. There is support for building an independent union.

The strike ended after an agreement was reached with the private owner and State Security officers, whereby:
1-The December 2006 salary was immediately paid to the workers.
2-The workers will be paid an extra third of their salary every month from now on, till the rest of their five-month unpaid salaries are received.

I’m APPALLED to say I did not come across a single news report in the Egyptian press about this strike, despite its militancy and the big number of workers taking part in the industrial action, facing intimidation from State Security officers who panicked with the workers taking their action outside the boundaries of their factory. During the strike, the workers assembled in front of the factory, carrying banners, and demonstrated on the highway where cars are traveling between Cairo and Ismailia.

Mabrouk…

Meanwhile, 600 teachers and members of staff staged a sit-in yesterday in the Nile Delta town of Zagazig, to protest the abusive treatment by their bosses at the Muslim Youth schools.

In Cairo, 200 workers at Al-Arabiya brick-making factory are continuing their sit-in for the fourth day, to protest the liquidation of the company. Some workers have started a hunger strike; three were transferred to the hospital yesterday: Hanafi el-Sayyed, Mohamed Bashir, Zakaria Ahmad Khalil. The Ministry of Labor is busy organizing the May Day presidential ass-kissing carnival, and refuses to intervene.

In Dakahlya, 280 workers at Mansoura-España garments factory are threatening to stage a sit-in on 28 April–which will be the third industrial action they take in two months–to protest the delay in paying their salaries, and bonuses promised by the Ministry of Labor.