Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Labor strikes & social struggles increase exponentially

Ahram Online

Monday 29 Apr 2013

Salma Shukrallah and Randa Ali
 
Egypt saw almost four times as many workers' protests last year – in both public and private sectors – as it did in 2010, according to new report by local NGO


The Egyptian Centre for Social and Economic Rights (ECESR) on Sunday issued a new report documenting labour strikes that took place in Egypt last year.

According to the report, in 2012, Egypt witnessed 1,969 protests by workers - in the government, public and private sectors - marking a considerable increase compared to 2010, when only 530 protests were recorded.

The 2012 protests listed in the report represent one of the highest levels of social struggle worldwide and include demonstrations, sit-ins, road blockages and strikes.

Thirty-six percent of these protests were staged to demand better pay, the report stated, going on to note that roughly five major labour protests per day were currently taking place in Egypt.

The report went on to assert that some 380 protests had been held to protest unemployment or demand permanent work contracts.

Another 70, meanwhile, had been prompted by arbitrary practices by management against workers.

The report further cited around 111 protests against 'corrupt' or 'failed' managements. It cited another 29 industrial actions in which workers demanded the re-operating of factories and companies, in addition to the reopening of companies that had been renationalized via court order.

Labour rights activists and ECESR lawyers have succeeded in winning court verdicts ordering the renationalisation of several privatised companies, including the Steam Boilers Company, Omar Effendi, Ideal, Assiut Cement, Nile Ginning Cotton Company, Shebin El-Kom Textiles Company, and Tanta for Flax and Oil.

Many of these verdicts, however, were never applied. Recently, Prime Minister Hisham Qandil was slapped with a suspended one-year jail sentence for failing to implement an administrative court ruling ordering the renationalisation of Egypt's Tanta Flax and Oil Company.

According to a recent report by the International Development Centre, an Egyptian rights organisation, Egypt is currently witnessing a sharp spike in labour and other social protests, with 1,354 protests recorded in March alone compared to 864 protests during the previous month. This means an average of 44 protests per day, or 1.8 protests every hour.

The report also states that the protests were held by 40 different social categories, with most being staged by politically unaffiliated individuals.

The vast majority of protests involved labour rights and rising fuel prices, the report added.

Within the past two years, the report went on, major strikes in Egypt involved railway workers, public transport workers, doctors and police officers.

After the January 25 Revolution ousted former president Hosni Mubarak, expectations were high that many of Egypt's social and economic woes – which many saw as the triggers of the uprising – would be minimised, and that demands for better working conditions and pay would be met.

According to the ECESR report, however, the number of strikes increased when President Mohamed Morsi won the elections, after which hopes were high for economic stability following months of uncertainty.

However, since 2011, Egypt has instead seen weak economic growth and rising costs of living. Government attempts to reduce subsidies have also led to rising prices for basic utilities, including electricity and natural gas.

What's more, the local currency has suffered a sharp devaluation this year due to dwindling foreign currency reserves.

The government is currently trying to modify an economic reform plan in hopes of obtaining a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund after the latter deemed an earlier plan 'weak.' A modified version of the plan is expected to further reduce energy subsidies and raise sales taxes.


*Photo courtesy of Mai Shaheen

Protesters clash with police near presidential palace

Al-Arabiya




Egyptian protesters clashed with police near the Presidential Palace in Cairo on Friday leaving at least 16 people injured, Al Arabiya correspondent reported.

To disperse protesters, who were throwing rocks at the police to keep them away from the vicinity, security forces in turn fired tear gas.

A police car was also set ablaze by the angry demonstrators.

The clashes came after dozens of protesters from Tahrir Square, backed up by the Black Bloc group and football ultras youth, started their march toward the Presidential Palace from Al-Murj metro station in the capital.

Black Bloc group stands against Islamist President Mohammed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, and its slogan is “chaos against injustice.” The group emerged in January and was at the forefront of anti-government protests in Cairo, Alexandria and the Suez Canal.

On Saturday, Egypt’s state security prosecution detained seven Black Bloc members and banned them from traveling on charges the group seeks to cause destruction in the country.

In another incident on Friday, the black-clad group threw Molotov cocktail at the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice Party in Al-Sharqiya provice, Youm 7 newspaper reported Friday.

The party is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Before setting the exterior frontier of the party’s headquarters on fire, the group was protesting against the Brotherhood.


*Photo courtesy of Al-Arabiya

Egypt's 2nd Independent Labor Union Federation is Launched

Ahram Online


Following months of groundwork, Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC) officially launches, bringing together 300 independent trade unions from across the country 


Ayat Al-Tawy

The Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC) was officially launched as an independent labour federation on Wednesday.

During a press conference at the Journalists' Syndicate in downtown Cairo, hundreds of workers from across the country, representatives of independent trade unions, political parties and NGOs gathered to announce the birth of the "long sought-after" body.

The launch also saw a big turnout of international labour organisations, including representatives from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – the world's largest trade union federation, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), as well representatives of trade unions from across European and Arab countries.

Present at the conference was Kamal Abu-Ayta, president of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU).

"Both unions [the EFITU and the EDLC] represent the democratic labour movement," Abu-Ayta said.

"Our goal is to attain the freedom to form unions."

The fundamental demands of Egyptian workers are, he said, a 'trade union freedom' law, the reinstatement of thousands of laid-off workers, the renationalisation of privatised companies, and a minimum and maximum wage.

The EDLC, which brings together 300 independent trade unions from across Egypt, was originally established in October 2011 as a broad labour coalition that sought to build a democratic independent trade union federation.

Since the 2011 revolt that unseated autocratic president Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian labour movement has made headway in challenging the stranglehold of the state-sponsored Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) by forming independent unions and federations.

Independent of the ETUF, the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress and the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) are the country's largest autonomous labour organisations.

"Workers want a government that respects them and creates jobs, respectful jobs," said Jaap Wienen, deputy general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation."Economies without respected workers cannot grow."

Wienen expressed solidarity with Egyptian workers and offered the EDLC association with the world's largest trade union confederation.

"Your government still does not understand that workers have the right to form their own trade union," he added. "We only see all these matters of not recognizing independent bodies in dictatorships, not democracies."

Since the 2011 uprising, labour action has been on the rise with strikes and protests to demand better pay and the elimination of widespread corruption across state institutions.

President Morsi's government has been accused of continuing the Mubarak regime's policy of stifling labour dissidence and opposing trade union freedom. Since Morsi assumed office, an increasing number of attacks on trade union activists have occurred, either through smear campaigns, the sacking of trade union leaders or even jail sentences for strike leaders.

In September 2012, union leaders at the Alexandria Port Containers Company were sentenced to three years in jail for leading a strike in October 2011.

Abrupt closure of Egypt Independent website & newspaper

New York Times 
News Web Site in Egypt Abruptly Shuts Down

April 25, 2013


Liam Stack


Egypt Independent, the country’s premier independent English language news source, ceased publication on Thursday after four years during which its staff chronicled the waning days of the Mubarak regime, the outbreak of revolution in their own country and across the Arab world, military rule and most recently the administration of the first democratically elected Islamist leader of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi.

Investors behind the paper cited financial difficulties as the reason for the closure, but the newspaper’s editorial staff, and many of its supporters, said they suspected a political motive behind the closure of the left-leaning outlet, which has been stridently critical of Mr. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-backed political party.

On Thursday, the editorial staff released the final issue on the Web site and as a fully downloadable document on Scribd.com after investors “ordered a last-minute stoppage” of the presses “after scrutinizing the issue’s content,” said the editorial staff in an online statement.

In an essay published on the Web site Tahrir Squared, prominent activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah extolled the paper as a “revolutionary” voice and attacked its closure as a political move meant to silence dissent.

“Today the owners decided to kill the paper, they claim financial trouble, but in reality the big business behind Al Masry Al Youm is no longer interested in a true revolutionary voice,” he wrote.
Egypt Independent had to be killed, you might think that an English paper in Arabic speaking revolutionary Egypt cannot be that dangerous, but where else do you find a paper run by young women? A paper that became home for an amalgam of misfits and radicals without compromising them, no one had to wear a suit, not physical or metaphorical. Hell, even when the editorial team was forced to deal with the business side and prove the paper could be a profit center they did it without compromising on their radicalism.
Staff members of Egypt Independent spoke often of the paper’s “vision,” a term that denoted an institutional commitment to professionalism and civil rights in a country emerging from generations of dictatorship, and where newspapers more often than not serve as mouthpieces for the state, political parties or powerful men.

Editor in chief Lina Attalah posted an update to Twiitter on Thursday announcing the end of the newspapers’ four year run.

In an editor’s letter, Ms. Attalah described the paper as an “intellectual laboratory” committed to challenging “the plague of self-censorship” and venality that afflicts so many Egyptian newspapers.

While Ms. Attalah said the staff was told two months ago that changes were needed to keep the paper afloat, she described the final decision to close its doors as a shock: in the form of a note left with the office receptionist.
Abdel Moneim Saeed, the new chairperson of the Al-Masry Media Corporation board, said closing Egypt Independent, which he argued had only constituted a financial burden on the institution, was a measure of his capacity as “a surgeon who has to conduct the fine operation of letting go of the child in order for the mother to survive.”
It is a fine operation indeed, if only Al-Masry was indeed our mother, and if only its survival was conditional on our closure, and not a much-needed reinvigorating and rigorous review of its institutional practice.
But it is also only a fine operation if closure is given its due attention, as much as openings are. In other words, a closure transcends a letter announcing it on hard copy left with the receptionist for the Egypt Independent team.
As Egypt struggles to emerge from the shadow of president Mubarak, overthrown by street protests in 2011, and move into a more democratic future under the rule of its new Islamist leaders, Ms. Attalah wrote that she considered one of the key questions for professional journalists to be, “How do we become active mediators as opposed to silent vehicles of information?”

As Egypt has gone through an extended period of political turmoil, the paper has been a go-to source of news for international readers hungry for detailed news about the country. On Thursday, there as an online outpouring over news of it’s closure from Egyptians, foreign journalists and Middle East analysts.

Kristen Chick, a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, expressed her concern for the fate of the newspaper’s Web site – an invaluable journalism archive of four critical years of Egyptian history – in an update she posted to Twitter.

In her editor’s letter, Ms. Attalah said the fate of the Web site and its archives was an open question, and argued that the collected works of her staff should remain available online.

“The archive transcend the legality of copyrights and follow the promise of the Internet as a democratic and open medium,” she wrote. “Not only should it stay online, it should also be an active site of memory and production, constantly linked and relinked to new content.”

Egypt Independent is the second independent English-language publication to shut down in Egypt in the last twelve months. One year ago this week, The Daily News Egypt abruptly closed after a seven year run when investors also claimed unbearable financial losses. Several laid-off reporters from that paper found their way to the Egypt Independent.

In an article published in the last issue, editor Amira Salah Ahmed joked, “History is supposed to repeat itself but not this soon, right?”



In her final letter, Ms. Attalah said that she and her staff “strive to continue and reincarnate in a new configuration,” and vowed that their work would continue in some new form.

Their readers, she said, had not seen the last of them. “We leave you with the hope of coming back soon, stronger and unbeaten, ready to incessantly travel to uncharted territories of storytelling.”

Journalism: Increasingly dangerous & precarious profession in Egypt

Egypt Independent
Final Issue: Job security, financial problems and dangers plague journalists

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Jano Charbel

This piece was written for Egypt Independent’s final weekly print edition, which was banned from going to press. We offer you our 50th and final edition here.



Journalism is becoming an increasingly dangerous and precarious profession in Egypt. Thousands of journalists risk life and limb on the streets while covering volatile events — often to find that their job security is also being threatened. In numerous cases, journalists are “rewarded” for their efforts by being dismissed from their jobs.

Al-Masry Media Corporation is the most recent employer to “reward” its journalists and employees with mass layoffs. Concerned with profitability, the company recently dismissed a number of its employees, with its closure of Al-Siyassy magazine in February and Egypt Independent this month.

While Egypt Independent is the most recent victim of closures and layoffs, a host of other newspapers and magazines — particularly independent and opposition publications — have also been shut down in recent years. Several of the remaining newspapers have raised the prices of their publications while cutting their budgets, and laying off employees.

Al-Siyassy and Egypt Independent follow in the footsteps of many including Al-Badeel, Al-Dostour and Daily News Egypt — the original versions — which have all been forced to shut down in recent years.

Khaled al-Balshy, Journalists Syndicate secretary and former editor of Al-Badeel newspaper, says that 13 papers have been closed down over the past few years.

“These closures have left some 350 journalists unemployed,” Balshy says.

Balshy adds that a total of 650 to 700 journalists, if not more, have been dismissed prior to and since the 25 January revolution two years ago.

“More closures are expected in the near future and more job losses are expected as a result,” Balshy says.

BURDENSOME PROFESSION

In Egypt and the Arab world, journalism is known as “mahnat al-mataeb” — the burdensome profession. Faced with physical danger, the threat of arrests, growing financial crises, the mismanagement of news outlets and rising unemployment — along with a host of other problems — Egypt’s journalists increasingly find themselves paying the price for these burdens with their own welfare and jobs.

Prior to and since the revolution’s onset, journalists are continuing to risk their lives and physical safety while covering violent protests, clashes and uprisings.

Police shotguns have claimed the eyes of several journalists, while independent journalist Al-Husseini Abu Deif was shot dead outside the presidential palace in December, and journalist Mohamed Sabry faces a military tribunal for his work in Sinai.

Countless others have been beaten and arrested by security forces, assaulted by supporters of the ruling regime (outside Muslim Brotherhood offices and the presidential palace), and even attacked by the Coptic Orthodox Church’s boy scouts.

“Neither employers nor the Journalists Syndicate provide sufficient safety nets for journalists,” says Mohamed Radwan, a freelancer who used to work for Al-Dostour newspaper.

Radwan is one of nearly 100 journalists who have lost their jobs at Al-Dostour.

EGYPTIAN JOURNALISTS


The average salaries of full-time journalists in daily newspapers range from LE400 to LE2,000 per month. For internships and training, beginner journalists are typically not paid at all.

Moreover, the widespread practice of employing full-time journalists on part-time contracts serves to deny these employees their right to bonuses, promotions, insurance coverage, profit sharing (when applicable), job stability and the right to join the Journalists Syndicate.

“I’d been employed for five years at Al-Dostour, yet was not even offered a part-time contract,” Radwan says. “I was thus denied my periodic bonuses, insurance plan and end-of-service payment, along with all of my other rights.”

Only a minority of journalists are accepted into the Journalists Syndicate, Radwan adds.
“The syndicate neither serves the interests nor protects the rights of the majority of Egypt’s journalists,” he says. “The syndicate doesn’t care about our grievances, difficulties and daily suffering.”

Balshy says the syndicate has a membership of about 9,000 journalists nationwide, of which some 7,000 are still practicing the profession. Another 6,000 or more journalists are not syndicate members.

The syndicate’s bylaws are the problem, he argues.

“We must change syndicate bylaws,” he says. “It is becoming increasingly difficult for journalists to apply for membership.”

He asserts that the syndicate is supposed to protect all journalists, especially those beginning their careers and those who are denied full-time contracts.

“It should be a syndicate for all those who practice the profession,” he says.
Balshy concedes that, given present economic hardships, it may be more difficult for journalists to acquire full-time contracts.

“Nevertheless, the syndicate should strive to protect disadvantaged journalists, not merely those lucky enough to have full-time contracts,” he argues.

But administrative shortcomings, financial mismanagement and other social, economic and political factors continue to hinder the provision of full-time contracts for full-time work, Balshy says, and may lead to additional closures of news outlets in the near future.

With regard to the closure of Egypt Independent, the secretary of the syndicate states, “I generally attribute the closure to the lack of English-speaking readers in Egypt, low subscriptions, high expenses and mismanagement on the part of Al-Masry Al-Youm.”

FOREIGN JOURNALISTS


While the average salaries of foreign journalists and Egyptians employed in foreign-language media outlets is nearly double that of local journalists, non-Egyptian journalists face numerous difficulties.
Foreign media personnel are not allowed membership in the Journalists Syndicate.

Non-Egyptian journalists can only register themselves at the state-controlled Foreign Press Association (FPA).
The FPA provides these non-Egyptians with work permits and journalist IDs, which are subject to selective renewals.

Foreign journalists who have fallen out of favor with the FPA have been slapped with travel bans, criminal investigations and, in many cases, are denied re-entry into Egypt. Foreign journalists also face a rising tide of xenophobia.

Earlier this month, Dutch journalist Rena Netjes was arrested and handed over to police, who accused her of “espionage” and “disseminating Western culture.” She was released, but later charged with not having a valid work permit.

Wael Tawfiq, founding member of the Independent Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate, says the group accepts foreigners in the syndicate, but only as affiliates.

“They do not have the right to vote in syndicate elections nor to nominate themselves. On the other hand, the official [Journalists] Syndicate does not accept foreigners under any condition,” Tawfiq says.

Tawfiq says his independent syndicate claims a membership of some 600 people, nearly all of whom are Egyptian.

“We don’t demand full-time contracts as a prerequisite for membership, only an archive of published materials in a news outlet based in Egypt,” he says.

In what he calls an “absence of safeguards” from employers and the official syndicate, the independent syndicate stands “for the defense of journalists’ rights through all stages of their work,” and attempts to protect members from punitive measures.

However, his syndicate does not have an emergency fund, nor does it provide unemployment assistance.

The official Journalists Syndicate has filed lawsuits against both the Independent Journalists Syndicate and the Egyptian Online Journalists Syndicate, both of which were established in 2011. The official syndicate claims it is the sole association legally entrusted with representing and organizing Egyptian journalists.

BLEAK OUTLOOK

Radwan says Egypt’s press freedoms and right to free expression are being “eroded” by the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Plus, we are expecting more economic problems in the media industry and in the general economy as a whole,” he says.

Radwan expects higher unemployment rates for journalists and media employees, along with fewer independent and opposition news outlets.

Tawfiq also expects more media outlets to close, due to both the Brotherhood’s attempts at “gagging” the media and the faltering economic conditions throughout the country.

“We’ve seen how President Mohamed Morsy’s supporters have besieged the [private] Media Production City. We’ve witnessed an unprecedented number of lawsuits against critical journalists, the appointment of regime loyalists to the top state-owned publications and channels, and the court-ordered closures of several satellite TV channels,” says Tawfiq.

He says he expects fewer job opportunities, lower salaries for full-time journalists and decreased rates for freelancers in the future.

Additional English-language publications and websites are expected to soon close. These closures will leave the state with a near monopoly on foreign-language news publications.



*Photo by Tarek Wageeh
*Second photo courtesy of Reuters/Khaled Elfiqi
*Third photo courtesy of AFP/Mohammed Abed

Egypt's Street Children - Victims of Poverty, Abuse & Neglect

Middle East Voices
VOICES: Egypt’s Street Children – Victims of Political Instability  

April 23, 2013

Amira Mikhail


Egypt's street children had a lot to gain from the country's revolution. However, change has come slowly if at all, and in many ways, their cause has been pushed off course. Increasing poverty, a growing shadow economy, and continued political instability, have proven challenges to the safety of these children.

The issue of street children is not a new phenomenon in Egypt, and even before the revolution, these children were often found at corners and under bridges – begging, cleaning cars, or selling tissue paper.

In 2005, the ESCWA estimated that there were anywhere between 200,000 to 2 million children on the streets. Other sources claimed that there were even up to 3 million on the streets. With a government resistant to social research and data, the real number of children on the streets remains unknown.

Like many Egyptians, these children have become intimately involved in the revolution. During sit-ins, many homeless families and children wander toward Tahrir Square to find work and even just a place to sleep at night. Street children adopt tents to take shelter among the activists.

Small schools and shelters have been set up in the square and downtown for children’s safety and education. Vending carts with seeds or sweet potatoes, some being manned by kids as young as nine, line the streets of every protest. Young boys have joined the front lines of the clashes.

Yet despite the rise and fall of revolutionary fervor and social change, street children remain victims of the state’s mismanagement and disregard for human rights, and are generally forgotten by society. There have been ongoing reports of sweeping arrest campaigns resulting in the arrest of thousands of children over the past year and a half.

Children are often apprehended during clashes or protests, but at other times they are picked up randomly. One child reported that he was in Tahrir Square buying a laser pointer when he was dragged off by a policeman. The detainees, sometimes as young as five, are often accused of ‘thuggery,’ ‘theft,’ ‘resisting authorities,’ and ‘damage of public property.’

At a recent conference held between civil society and relevant government officials, Ahmed Moselhy, a representative of the Egyptian Coalition for Child Rights, reported that over 1,000 minors under the age of 18 have been killed in the past seven months.
The well-known case of Omar Salah, one of the victims, demonstrates the government’s blatant role. On February 3, at the age of around 10, Omar was shot in the chest twice by military personnel in an ‘accidental’ show of force.


Almost two months later, the lawyers and Omar’s family are still struggling against a court that is dragging its feet despite clear evidence implicating the accused in Omar’s death.

In a report released April 4, the Popular Campaign for the Protection of Children confirmed that the courts have been working with an altered forensic report favoring the defendant.
 
In addition to reports of child deaths, thousands have been detained and incarcerated.The alarming treatment of children, post apprehension, is in clear violation of both local and international law.

Reports of physical and sexual abuse are common, reaching the degree of severe beatings, torture, and rape. Many of the children are not sent to age-appropriate institutions, but are kept in cells with adult criminals, thus subjected to further abuse.

But even juvenile detention centers are in dire condition. Horrific stories of abuse, even between the children themselves, make it difficult to recommend such centers as a viable alternative.

Despite some legal gains in 2008 when portions of the Child Law (Law No. 12 of 1996) were revised, the greatest challenge remains the law’s implementation. In fact, it is a sad irony that the very people who bear the responsibility of implementing these laws are often the first to break them.

Article 4 says, “The State shall provide the child deprived of family care with alternative care,” clearly mandating the state’s responsibility for the protection of displaced children.

And yet the Egyptian government remains in violation of their own local law, not to mention their commitment to international law. The Convention on the Rights of Children clearly indicates the responsibility of the state to protect a child’s right to protection, care, education, and health.

For years, Egyptian civil society and international non-governmental organizations have worked to improve the lives of these children. However, under the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule, the recently drafted NGO law threatens to create crippling obstacles for civil society.

Many NGOs rely on foreign funding for development and charity work. Now, with the new draft law, NGOs and other similar institutions are worried about their ability to keep up with the changing policies and regulations.


The political and societal consequences of Egypt’s growing population of street children are vast, and serious steps must be taken to address this issue. These children are becoming further alienated from society.

Policies are restrictive, and many of these children cannot go to school, join the workforce, or in some cases, even obtain a national identity documents, including their own birth certificates.
Certain proposals from the current government, if passed into law, would be catastrophic for children’s development. For example, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Insurance announced last year that 17 million EGP would be allocated to build self-sustaining cities for street children where they would be kept until they were ‘ready to be rehabilitated back into society.’ 

Fortunately, this proposal has not yet been passed. Such ideas are far from effective and keep civil society on edge about the future of street children’s lives under the current government.

With up to three million street children (a number that could be larger than the actual membership of the Muslim Brotherhood), Egypt is faced with a growing portion of society that is disillusioned and uneducated, a disaster scenario given the economy’s downward spiral. The government's policies are essentially fostering an accelerated growth of poverty in Egypt, which could lead the country to long-term instability.

The Egyptian government carries the responsibility of tackling this serious and deepening problem, starting with prevention of child runaways in each home, while addressing the immediate needs of each child already on the streets. Serious reform is needed, and the unimpeded work of civil society groups is essential for providing Egypt's children with their inherent and national rights.

*First photo courtesy of Reuters
*Second photo courtesy of Ahram
*Third photo courtesy of AFP

4 men arrested at underwear protest languish in max. security prison

Daily News Egypt

Profile: Teacher, scientist and activist held in max-security prison

Four men arrested at protest are being held at a high security prison

April 22, 2013



In Tora maximum-security prison (also known as Al-Aqrab) is a facility reserved for Egypt’s most dangerous criminals. Four men arrested at a protest are imprisoned there.

Three of the men are members of the 6 April Youth Movement and took part in a protest outside Minister of Interior Mohammed Ibrahim’s house on 29 March. The movement members surrounded the minister’s house and proceeded to throw ladies undergarments at the house, declaring that the Ministry of Interior is “a prostitute of all regimes.”

The fourth man, though not a movement member, decided to join the protest as was passing by, the 6 April Movement claim that the protest was violently dispersed and the four men were arrested.

Since their arrest the men have been moved around different detention centres, reported Amnesty International. One place is the Central Security Forces encampment Al-Gabal Al-Ahmar that is not an official place of detention. The four men were eventually moved to Al-Aqrab on 6 April.

Mohamed Mostafa is 30 years old and a laboratory director for a national petroleum company. He is also a co-founder of 6 April Youth Movement. He has a wife and two young daughters.

DNE spoke to Mostafa’s wife, Rasha Salem, who had recently been allowed to visit her husband at Al-Aqrab. “Mostafa is psychologically not well. He is moody and is always tired. He is covered in mosquito bites and the conditions they are keeping him in are inhumane,” she said.

In the three weeks since his detention, Mostafa now faces the possibility of losing his job, said his wife. She added that he is no longer receiving a wage.

“How can his only crime be insulting the minister of interior?” she asked. “Everyone insults him and the president every day.” She added: “They are holding him over 23 pieces of underwear.” Salem added that the underwear is being used as evidence against the four men in court.

Zizou Abdu is 28 years old and is a history teacher in a private school. He is the coordinator for the 6 April Youth Movement in his local neighbourhood of Boulaq Al-Dakrour. He is also very active in supporting workers’ rights.

Abdu’s brother, Ibrahim Fahmy, said that he was able to visit his brother at Al-Aqrab on Monday. He was pleased to see that the conditions had become better for his brother. “They were kept in solitary confinement, only allowed to drink from the sink and the food given to them was inhumane. They are locked up with jihadists, terrorists and drug dealers.”

He noted that the conditions had improved thanks to pressure applied to the authorities and the media coverage. Fahmy reported that a policeman told the detainees that they were being held under the preventative detention law in order to make an example of them.

“Abdu joined 6 April in 2009 and was a member of Kefaya in 2008. He teaches during the day and works on his political activism at night.”

Usually he does not tell their mother when Abdu is arrested but this time he has been gone for too long. “She does not speak or eat, she is always sleeping,” Fahmy explained.

Mamdouh Hassan, also known as Abu Adam, is 28 years old and a sales manager at a private company. Among the 6 April group Hassan is responsible for training and educating younger members of the group on non-violent and peaceful methods of protesting.

Speaking to DNE, Hassan’s father said: “6 April is always peaceful and never uses violence. It is the Muslim Brotherhood that has always used violence.”

Sayed Mounir is not a member of the movement but was arrested at the same time as the three 6 April members. Mounir’s mother told the 6 April Movement that her son went to see the protest at 11pm and never returned. She insisted that he does not participate in protests and she believes he was arrested arbitrarily.

Khaled El-Masry, media director for the youth movement reported that the Ministry of Interior has assured the group that the men are being treated well. El-Masry said that the conditions had improved, “but we believe they are still at high risk.”

The group have lodged a formal complaint with the authorities and has contacted the human rights committee of the Shura Council and various NGOs.

He added that the four men will appear in court next Monday and the group are hopeful that they will be released. “They have no case to keep them detained any longer. They have nothing on them.”