Syria, Iraq & Egypt deadliest countries for journalists

Committee to Protect Journalists

Syria, Iraq, Egypt most deadly nations for journalists

The conflict in Syria, a spike in Iraqi bloodshed, and political violence in Egypt accounted for the high number of journalists killed on the job in 2013. 

December 30, 2013

Elana Beiser

Syria remained the most deadly place for journalists on the job in 2013, while Iraq and Egypt saw a spike in fatal violence. Two-thirds of journalist killings during the year took place in the Middle East.

Seventy journalists were killed for their work in 2013, down from 74 in 2012, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its annual analysis. CPJ is investigating the deaths of 25 more journalists in 2013 to establish whether they were work-related.

Pakistan, Somalia, India, Brazil, the Philippines, Mali, and Russia also saw multiple journalist deaths during the year, although the number of deaths in Pakistan and Somalia declined significantly. Mexico was notably absent from the list, with no deaths confirmed as work-related.

The proportion of victims who were singled out for murder was 44 percent, less than the historical average. Thirty-six percent of the journalists were killed in combat or crossfire, while 20 percent died during some other type of dangerous assignment.

The long-standing conflict in Syria claimed the lives of at least 29 journalists in 2013. That brings the number of journalists killed covering the conflict to 63, including some who died over the border in Lebanon or Turkey. Among the victims was Yara Abbas, a correspondent for the pro-government TV channel Al-Ikhbariya, who was killed when her crew's vehicle came under rebel sniper fire in the city of Al-Qusayr.

Yet the huge number of deaths in Syria does not tell the complete story of the danger to journalists there. The country saw an unprecedented number of kidnappings in 2013; about 60 journalists were abducted at least briefly during the year, according to CPJ research.

Late in 2013, at least 30 were still missing. Most were believed held by rebel groups. However, at least one journalist died in government custody during the year: Abdul Raheem Kour Hassan, the director of broadcasting for opposition station Watan FM, was arrested in January; authorities informed his family of his death in April, but did not give any details. The station said he was tortured to death at Palestine Branch, a feared Damascus prison operated by Syria's Military Intelligence Security.

At least 10 journalists were killed for their work in Iraq­, nine of them murdered, and all during the final quarter of the year. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on cameraman Mohammed Ghanem and correspondent Mohammed Karim al-Badrani of the independent TV channel Al-Sharqiya as they filmed a report on Eid al-Adha holiday preparations in Mosul in October.

It is unclear why they were targeted; the station has attracted ire from both Iraqi authorities and anti-government militants.

Amid stark political polarization and related street violence, things deteriorated dramatically for journalists in Egypt, where six journalists were killed for their work in 2013. Three were killed in a single day, August 14, as they covered raids by Egyptian security forces on demonstrating supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Since 1992, CPJ has documented the deaths of 10 journalists for their work in Egypt—nine of them since anti-government protests began in 2011.

Iraq and Egypt displaced Pakistan and Somalia, the second and third most deadly countries for journalists in 2012. Five journalists were killed in Pakistan in 2013, the lowest number since eight died for their work in 2010. While about half of the victims in Pakistan over the years have been singled out for murder, according to CPJ research, four of this year’s five deaths came in bomb blasts. The fifth was murder: Ayub Khattak of Karak Times was shot to death outside his home in October after reporting on the local criminal drug trade.

While Somalia continues to be a very dangerous place to practice journalism, the number of confirmed work-related deaths declined to four, plus one media worker, in 2013, compared with a record 12 in 2012. In both years, all of the victims were singled out for murder. Somalia’s government has made repeated pledges to fight the cycle of impunity in journalists’ killings, but has made almost no progress in solving any of the crimes.

In the meantime, CPJ research shows that journalists have stepped up their own security measures, while political groups and Al-Shabaab insurgents­—believed responsible for many of the murders—have wielded less lethal influence since 2012 elections.

As most of the deadly countries for journalists are or have been recently a setting for conflict or severe political turmoil, Brazil is a standout as a stable democracy where several journalists nonetheless have been killed for their work in recent years. In 2013, three were killed for their­ work—all of them provincial journalists murdered after reporting on local crime and corruption—compared with four in 2012 and another three in 2011. CPJ continues to investigate the motive for another five deaths during those three years.

Mali in 2013 saw its first journalist deaths since CPJ began keeping records in 1992. Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, veteran journalists at Radio France Internationale, were kidnapped as they finished an interview at the home of a Tuareg separatist leader in the remote Sarahan town of Kidal.

The bullet-ridden bodies of the journalists were found next to their vehicle outside the town.
While those killed in Mali were on international assignment, most journalists who die for their work are local people covering local stories, according to CPJ research. In 2013, nine out of 10 journalists killed were local, in line with the historical trend.
Some other trends that emerged from CPJ’s research:

• In the Philippines, a country long plagued by deadly, anti-press violence, CPJ confirmed that three journalists were killed in reprisal for their work, and is investigating the motive in another six murders. Although it is difficult to determine the motive in many cases in the Philippines, the total number of journalist killings was the highest in four years.
• In Mexico, another country where motives in journalist murders is hard to determine, CPJ could not confirm that any single journalist was killed for his or her work for the first time in a decade. However, CPJ is still investigating three killings to determine the motive.
• Eight of the countries that saw a journalist murdered during 2013 are listed on CPJ’s most recent Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are regularly murdered and the killers go free.
• CPJ documented the deaths of four media workers in 2013. One of them, José Darío Arenas, was a newspaper vendor who was murdered after helping a reporter write a story on mistreatment by prison guards in his town.
• During 2013, CPJ documented the 1,000th death since it began keeping records in 1992. A video marking the journalist killings can be seen here, and a slideshow of some of the journalists killed over the years can be found here.
• Prior to the 2011 uprising against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, CPJ had not documented a single work-related death of a journalist in Syria since the organization began keeping detailed records in 1992.
• The worst years on CPJ’s record are 2009 and 2012; 74 journalists were confirmed killed because of their work in each of those years.

CPJ began compiling detailed records on all journalist deaths in 1992. CPJ staff members independently investigate and verify the circumstances behind each death. CPJ considers a case work-related only when its staff is reasonably certain that a journalist was killed in direct reprisal for his or her work; in combat-related crossfire; or while carrying out a dangerous assignment.

If the motives in a killing are unclear, but it is possible that a journalist died in relation to his or her work, CPJ classifies the case as “unconfirmed” and continues to investigate. CPJ’s list does not include journalists who died of illness or were killed in car or plane accidents unless the crash was caused by hostile action. Other press organizations using different criteria cite higher numbers of deaths than CPJ.

CPJ’s database of journalists killed for their work in 2013 includes capsule reports on each victim and a statistical analysis. CPJ also maintains a database of all journalists killed since 1992.

Police use attack-dogs against workers on strike

Egypt Independent
Cement company workers decry dog attack

Sat. March 2, 2013

Jano Charbel

The use of police dogs in attacks against labor actions have been documented by activists and workers, who say that this is a part of a host of heavy handed crackdown and punitive actions used against them recently.

Among the most recent crackdowns was the storming of the Portland-Titan Cement Company in Alexandria by security forces on 17 February.

Central Security Forces armed with clubs, electric prods and attack dogs –– an unprecedented incident –– conducted an early morning raid in which tens of workers were injured, five of these workers have been reported to have sustained serious injuries, including broken bones, and cuts.

Security forces arrested 87 workers who were striking and occupying their company’s administrative building. Eighteen of these workers remain in police custody pending investigations, while the other workers have since been released.

“We’ve never heard of a crackdown against workers involving police dogs prior to this incident,” said Talal Shokr of the Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress.

“This is a clear escalation in police brutality against the workers and their right to strike,” Shokr added. “It is the most brutal attack against workers since the crackdown against the strike at the Helwan Iron and Steel Company in 1989.”

In August 1989 Mubarak’s police forces raided this massive state-owned steel mill in southern Cairo, where thousands of workers were staging a sit-in protest. Police shot dead one worker, injured dozens, and arrested nearly 600, while other workers were tortured in detention.

Speaking in Giza on Wednesday evening, at a labor conference titled “Workers face brutal repression, imprisonment and joblessness,” Mohamed Hamed, president of the Independent Union Committee for Portland-Titan Company Workers, expressed his dismay at “the current regime’s failure to respect workers’ rights.”

Hamed claimed, “I was imprisoned, tortured and electrocuted by [former President Hosni] Mubarak’s security forces on charges of instigating a strike at our company in 2007.”

Hamed added, “Our demands back then are the same as they are now: full-time contracts for our full-time work, and the payment of overdue profit-sharing. As during the days of Mubarak, our demands still remain unmet under the administration of President [Mohamed] Morsy.”

Hamed expressed his disappointment as he asked, “How is it that the president, who is referred to as a believing Muslim, condones the use of police dogs in attacking workers while they pray in a mosque?”

Hamed explained that workers were praying their dawn prayers in a hall within the company’s administrative building –– which had been converted into a makeshift prayer room –– when police stormed their sit-in occupation.

“Police removed the muzzles from their dogs’ and unleashed them upon us. The police attacked the workers while they were praying. They violated the sanctity of our mosque with their boots and their dogs,” said Hamed.

“One worker was attacked and bitten by a police dog, others jumped out of windows in attempt to evade the police’s batons and dogs. Yet another worker was thrown out of a window from the third floor at the hands of the police.”

The use of attack dogs by security forces has precedents. Last November, military police forces had come under criticism for unleashing an attack dog against protesters in the Nile Delta city of Kafr al-Sheikh; the incident informally became known as the "Battle of the Dog."

However, General Abdel Mawgoud Lotfy, Alexandria’s top security chief, denied the use of police dogs or any other form of violence in dealing with the workers. According to media reports, the general confirmed that 87 workers were initially arrested –– justifying the action on the basis that they were holding members of the company’s administrative board as hostages –– including Egyptian and foreign nationals.

Hamed vehemently refuted these claims, and challenged authorities to release the medical reports of his detained co-workers. “My imprisoned colleagues are not allowed any visitors, so we can’t get our doctors inside to document their cases. Two of those assaulted and locked-up are my deputies in the trade union.” Hamed claimed that authorities are providing the detainees with “inadequate medical attention in detention.”

Hamed also denied any case of "boss-napping," saying, “There are 156 workers who were present when the police stormed. Each one can bear witness to the fact that we didn’t take any hostages from the administration. We talked and dealt with the administration in a very civilized manner. Everybody was free to leave. This is clear in the photos and videos we took using our phones.”

Media reports prior to, and since, the police stormed the company on 17 February mention that an Indian, Greek and Egyptian administrators were being held hostage for several days. “One day prior to the attack, I found that the company administration had filed charges against us at the police station claiming that we were holding them hostage. These are bogus and trumped-up charges, yet the police acted on them anyway,” said Hamed.

An Alexandria court is scheduled to review the case of the 18 workers on 3 March.

A labor rights rally held on Thursday in Alexandria dubbed “Scream of the Workers” addressed the case of the Portland-Titan Company, as well as two independent union organizers from Alexandria’s Water Utilities Company who were reportedly assaulted by unknown assailants and the case of workers from Faragello Company who were rendered jobless with the closure of factories, 16 of whom were later arrested. The conference also raised the case of workers from the Sumed Company whose sit-in protest has entered its third week.

According to Fatma Ramadan, Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions board member, “Morsy and his regime have repeatedly proven their willingness to use police violence, and to draft hostile laws, which strip Egypt’s workers of their most basic rights. This regime has even resorted to the use of police dogs against workers –– a brutal act, unheard of even during Mubarak’s rule.”

Ramadan added that “over the past few days we’ve witnessed physical assaults against workers and systematic violations of labor rights from Alexandria to Luxor, and beyond.”

Ramadan concluded, “the new regime has moved to demonize strikes and industrial actions, describing them as selfish actions which only serve to harm the national economy and to obstruct ‘the wheel/gears of production.’”

On Tuesday, Finance Minister Morsy Hegazy claimed that Egypt's economy is ailing, and that it incurs losses amounting to LE100 million each day as a result of ongoing unrest, including protests, strikes and other disruptions.

*Photos from the military police's "Battle of the Dog" in Kafr el-Sheikh, November 2012 - courtesy of Al-Watan Newspaper

57 Years of Military Dictatorship - Commemorating Egypt's 1952 Military Coup

In Egypt the military coup led by the "Free Officers" which overthrew King Farouq on July 23,1952 is referred to only as the "July Revolution." There is no mention of a coup d'etat or a military take-over, only "Revolution" or the "Victorious July Revolution." This is what Egyptian children are taught in their history books and this is the message transmitted to the people via the state-controlled media.

Similarly President Gamal Abdel Nasser's corporatist/populist system of authoritarian rule (1954-70) is referred to only as "socialism" or "Arab Socialism." In any case all remnants of this so-called "socialism" have been permanently erased from the Egyptian Constitution via the 34 constitutional amendments of March 2007.

When Premier Mohammad Naguib announced his demands for the army to return to its barracks, and for a resumption of civilian rule he was promptly deposed by the "Revolutionary Command Council" on November 14, 1954. Naguib's calls for a return to civilian rule are rarely mentioned or discussed.

Only three military dictators have ruled this country after 1954, and for the past 28 years we have been living under a police-state dick-tatorship. The influence of the military has since been eclipsed by the influence of the businessmen who control the ruling party, the ministries, the upper and lower houses of parliament, and the local city councils.

This so-called "July Revolution" has only moved us from the dictatorships of military men to the dictatorships of businessmen. It has achieved this by crushing and dismantling civil society. Ever since this military coup Egypt's independent trade unions were brought under state control, political parties were virtually wiped out, seats in legislative assemblies denied to opposition members, professional syndicates were manipulated and are still being interfered with, while NGOs and their constituents are subjected to constant harassment and arrests.

There were in fact more civil liberties and political rights during the days of King Farouq than there are currently under Dick-tator Mubarak. Sure, monarchies are probably the most absurd madcap and degrading forms of government, but police-state republics may be even worse. Keeping in mind that Mubarak Senior has been grooming Junior for the presidency for a decade now, it looks Egypt is devolving into a monarchy once again.

Hafez to Bashar El Assad in Syria, Fidel to Raul Castro in Cuba, Hosni to Jimmy Mubarak in Egypt. Isn't it about time for new revolutions, genuine popular revolutions?

JC

The Dissenting Voices of Egyptian Quarry Workers & Owners

AlMasryOnline.Com
Tuesday 21 July 2009
Chaos among the quarries

El Minya is bracing itself for a second round of violent clashes over a new government taxation system
By Jano Charbel

El-Minya- On the city’s eastern banks, dozens of workers wait idly by the side of roads in anticipation of job offers in the quarries. Empty trucks and lorries drive uphill towards the quarries, while others drive downhill loaded with stone blocks and dust-covered workers.

A July 16 protest here over a new system of government tax attracted an estimated 4,000 angry quarry workers. When Central Security Forces moved in to physically disperse the protesters, the ensuing conflict left one police conscript dead and a dozen more injured; more than 50 protestors were arrested and at least 20 more were treated for tear gas inhalation.

Meanwhile, the quarry owners and workers have returned to their workplaces.

Among the white cliffs that house the estimated 800 local quarries, business-as-usual seems to have resumed. Machine operators saw into the earth and cut out rows of blocks producing immense clouds of dust in the process; close-by a team of workers dislodge these blocks and toss them to their coworkers who line and stack them in the backs of trucks. Very few of these workers wear protective masks or goggles, although most do cover their faces with scarves and some wear sunglasses.

But a climate of fear and suspicion reigns at all levels. All workers and quarry owners interviewed for this article refused to give their names or chose pseudonyms to protect against government reprisal.

Under the protection of anonymity, the workers bitterly vented against what they see as a callous and out-of-touch government decision that will directly affect their livelihoods. The average quarry worker, they say, can make up to LE 50 per day, while a machine operator can make up to LE 120.

“The governor is a police-officer-thug, he forcefully wants to take our money that we work so hard to make" said one man. Another anonymous worker said, “The governor sits in his air-conditioned office and never comes to inspect our workplaces in these hills; he knows nothing about our working conditions." Yet another shouted, “Does he think we are working in a gold-quarry or what?"

A local activist said the harsh working conditions in the quarries have honed the workers’ feelings of bitterness and set the stage for this month’s explosion when the new tariff system was announced.

“Quarrying is an extremely hazardous occupation. Nearly 100 workers die as a result of industrial accidents each year in these hills. Several hundred more are injured, maimed by saws and razors, while others are crushed in rockslides," he said.

One 19-year-old quarry worker lifted up his galabiya to display the long scar running down his left leg.

“A saw broke off one of the machines and cut my leg open two years ago, I nearly bled to death," he said.

Even for those who escape serious injury, the harsh lifestyle of a quarry worker takes its toll.

“By thirty or forty years old the worker is physically worn-out," one man said. “You won’t find any worker in the quarries who is 50 years old. Only quarry owners reach that age."

A co-owner of a local quarry, asking that his name not be published, said the government is trying to tax the operations without providing the social and health care services that the taxes are supposed to fund.

“If the governorate provided our workers with clinics, hospitals or medical assistance then they would be willing to pay for these services," he said. “But what has the government given us? Nothing at all. They don’t give, they only take."

The owners warned that Minya could witness a second explosion of workers’ anger if the situation isn’t resolved by August 1, when the new taxation system is schedule to take effect.

The dispute began earlier this summer when Minya Governor Ahmed Diaa el-Dein ordered a change in the government’s system of taxing the hundreds of stone quarries that dot the city’s eastern hills. El-Dein decreed that instead of collecting an annual rent on the quarries, plus the annual social insurance payments, the only charges imposed would be the charge of 1 piaster upon every brick-sized block of stone produced, plus another piaster for each block that is transported within the governorate, and two piasters for each block being transported outside the governorate.

In a statement issued by the governor’s office, el-Dein said the change amounted to a mere adjustment in accounting procedures—one he discussed beforehand with several local quarry owners.

“We were surprised when we later found that quarry owners were objecting," el-Dein’s statement said.

But one local workers’ rights activist (who asked to keep both their name and that of their independent organization undisclosed) explained that the changes actually amounted to a massive new tax on quarry operations. The reason: only about 350 of the larger quarries were ever registered with the government and paid the annual rent fees or social insurance fees. Another 450 or so smaller quarries were unlicensed and never paid anything, the activist said.

“To an outsider, the governor’s decree would seem like a service to the quarry owners in its elimination of the burden of rent, but in reality most of the quarry owners and workers weren’t paying rent or social insurance," the activist said. “When you calculate it, you’ll find that this new system will generate at least another LE 10 million per year for the Governorate’s coffers."

Most local quarry owners, large and small, shut down their operations in protest at the beginning of July while they attempted to negotiate with the Governorate. But by July 16, workers left without an income source grew impatient and began marching and demonstrating, the local activist said.

The aftermath of the July 16 protest has left parts of Minya on security lockdown. Most quarry owners and workers have resumed operations, while the governorate conducts negotiations with the owners and the relatively small local quarry workers’ trade union. El-Dein postponed implementation of his new taxation decree until August 1 and has discussed plans to create an LE 5 million fund for compensating workplace injuries and deaths, along with the immediate construction of a medical center and a mobile hospital unit.

Forty three protestors remain under arrest despite a court ruling ordering their release. Prosecutors have filed charges including participating in an illegal demonstration, assault and injury of law enforcement officials, accidental murder, blocking-off roads and obstructing traffic.

Now a relative calm has settled on Minya, backed by a massive deployment of security forces and paddy wagons. Meanwhile all sides are trying to understand and explain the decisions and social circumstances that led to such a violent confrontation in this rural city about 240 kilometers south of Cairo.

“The ball is in (the government’s) playing field now," he said.

Meanwhile the local activist said that the entire conflict has already produced one interesting side effect—an unlikely unified front against the government.

“This is the first time that both the quarry workers and the owners are united in their grievances."




See also: Al Masry Al Youm Online - 43 miners in police custody following riots

Thousands of quarry workers clash with Egypt police

CAIRO, July 16 (Reuters) - A policeman died and several people were injured when thousands of quarry workers and owners clashed with police in Egypt on Thursday, security sources and witnesses said.

The protesters marched into al-Minya city, in the central province of al-Minya, and blocked a bridge spanning the Nile, to protest against a decision by the authorities to impose new duties on quarried rock, security sources said.

Police used teargas to disperse the crowd, but the protesters stoned police, injuring at least four officers, security sources said.

One policeman died, and accounts differed as to whether he was killed during the stoning or from exposure to teargas.

Reports of the total number injured varied. Security sources said at least 17 riot police had been wounded, and more than 20 protesters were suffering the effects of teargas inhalation.

Police arrested some of the protesters. Estimates by security sources of how many ranged from five to close to 50.

The website of the independent daily al-Masry al-Youm said the government had imposed duties of 40 Egyptian pounds ($7.17) per tonne of quarried stone, leading some quarries to shut down and lay off their labourers.

Protesters said they held the demonstration because petitions to officials had been ignored and some quarries had been shut for more than two weeks, the website said.

Labour unrest has become common in Egypt, usually over pay, and often in privatised companies. Even professional groups such as doctors, pharmacists and lawyers have stopped work or threatened strikes over pay.

Worker frustration with rising prices and shortages of subsidised bread flared into two days of clashes with security forces in the city of Mahalla El-Kubra north of Cairo in April last year. Three people were killed and scores injured.

(Writing by Aziz El-Kaissouni)
Thousands of quarry workers clash with Egypt police

AP - Fifteen People Injured in Protest in Egypt

Clashes erupt as textile factory workers strike in Mahalla

Daily News Egypt
By Abdel-Rahman Hussein
First Published: July 12, 2009

CAIRO: Clashes erupted Sunday between security forces and workers of the Aboul Seba’ textile factory in Mahalla after workers went on strike to demand three months of unpaid wages.

Initially, 500 workers gathered in front of the factory Sunday morning and started a strike because they have not been paid for the past three months. Clashes erupted late afternoon when security forces attempted to force workers off the street and onto factory premises. Workers responded by pelting security forces with stones.

Earlier, clashes had broken out for the very same reason and some vehicles were damaged in the process. The roads around the factory were also blocked by the workers but at one point security forces managed to steer them to one side.

Some of the workers were kept in the factory earlier in the day and were prevented from leaving the premises to join their colleagues on strike but left when their shift ended.

Alaa El-Gameel, one of the factory workers on strike, told Daily News Egypt, “People haven’t been paid in three months, the excuse we were given was that factory’s exports had stopped, that they didn’t have the money and they kept telling us to be patient.”

“Ramadan and Eid are coming, and I’m married, I can’t afford to wait any longer,” he added.

El-Gameel is one of over 4,000 workers who work in the three Aboul Seba’ textile factories in Mahalla, each one administered by one brother. The three Aboul Seba’ apparently left to Germany Sunday morning, said El-Gameel.

El-Gameel has been working at the factory for 10 years, earning take home pay of LE 300 bi-weekly. Despite the length of time he has spent at Aboul Seba’ factory, he is not on a long-term contract and remains officially a temporary worker.

Due to their status as temporary workers, “the workers of the Aboul Seba’ factories don’t have health care,” Mahalla blogger Mohammed Maree of Egytimes.org told Daily News Egypt.

According to Maree, salaries for the factory workers range form LE 11–19 per day and while official working hours are eight a day, workers often work 12 hours with no overtime.

Additionally, 150 workers have been let off in the past three months

“They are suffering from the lack of pay, an effect of privatization in Egypt. The investor cares about profit at the expense of the workers,” Maree said.

Alaa El-Mahdy, who has been at the factory for 13 years, also on temporary status, told Daily News Egypt, “We want to feed our kids, for three months we have been trying to tell them and the factory administration hasn’t solved anything.”

“The factory hasn’t been exporting since May, but this is not our problem, we deserve pay for our work,” El-Gameel said.

***

Clashes erupt as textile factory workers strike in Mahalla

Calls for workers' self-management in Egypt

Excuse me, we will take it from here
Almasryonline.com

Textile strikers tell government they will self manage their factory, Hossam El Hamalawy reports.

In a solidarity meeting in Cairo, The Tanta Flax and Oil Company workers renewed their call for the nationalization of their factory, threatening to take over the factory and run it independently from the investor and the government if the latter didn’t intervene on behalf of the strikers.

“The strike enters its 41st day and the government has neither moved nor intervened to help us,” Ashraf El Harti, a worker who’s sacked a year ago for taking part in a previous strike, told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Friday during a mass meeting held in downtown Cairo’s Tagammu Party Head Quarters, in solidarity with the strikers. His colleague, Abdel Aziz Fathi, a telephone operator in the company which was privatized four years ago to a Saudi investor stressed: “Our first demand now is the return of the company to the Public Sector ownership. Forget about anything else. We don’t want anything except this now.”

But other strike leaders are even more ambitious. “I want to tell the government of Egypt something,” thundered Hisham El Okal, a sacked trade unionist who’s among the strike organizers. “You had more than 40 days to solve our problems, but you didn’t do anything. Ok, why don’t you lift your hands now off the issue and leave it for us to solve? We neither want the government nor the Saudi investor. We will take over the factory and self manage it.” El-Okal’s proposal drew standing ovation from the audience.

Representatives of the strikers took turns to address hundreds of workers and solidarity activists who packed the meeting hall, decorated by banners denouncing the Saudi investor and privatization. Their speeches were usually interrupted by strikers’ chanting against “greedy capitalism, privatization and the looting of the country by investors.”
The Tanta strike reasons go beyond the nationalization issue. Around 1000 workers have been staging a strike in the Nile Delta textile plant, since 31 May, demanding the reinstatement of nine sacked workers–including two trade unionists–and increasing the food allowance as well as receiving overdue bonuses and incentives.

“If the investor was Egyptian,” shouted one of the strikers during the meeting, “do you think they’d have allowed him to do so?” The striker then went on a frenzy, chanting: “No Saudi, No Japanese. Tanta Flax Company is returning to Egyptian ownership.”

Gamal Othman, one of the strikers’ spokespersons, also warned that workers’ patience was running out. “My advise to the government is to leave us to act if the Labor Ministry officials are not planning to intervene on our behalf. Do not blame us for what will happen. We stayed civil for 41 days and our voices were not heard. It seems we have to do another Mahalla to get the government’s attention,” he said referring to the food riots that rocked the neighboring Nile Delta province last year.

El Okal, the sacked trade unionist, passionately spoke about what he described as the bigger picture. “If we manage to succeed in Tanta Flax, this will be the end of privatization in Egypt. All companies will follow suit and strike to be renationalized or self managed. Our fight is not only a fight for the workers of Tanta, but all of Egypt.”
Member of parliament Mohamed Abdel Aziz Shaaban attended the public meeting, and spoke in support of the strikers, denouncing the “Saudi slave labor system the investor wants to apply in Tanta.” The MP repeatedly denounced “Saudi Wahabbism and Gulf Arabs who enslave Egyptian workers,” only to be interrupted by one of the strikers from the floor: “But the management is Egyptian! A Saudi owns the company, but he uses Egyptians to run it. Egyptians are enslaving Egyptians. The management is the enemy.”

The Tanta strike is part of a series of industrial action recently witnessed in privatized firms. Though nationalization is increasingly becoming a popular demand by strikers, self-management was rarely put on the agenda. Only two companies are self-managed by the workers in the 10th of Ramadan City. Workers took over production in textile dyes and electric bulbs manufacturing firms around four years ago after the owning businessmen fled abroad to escape their bank debts.

And while the strike continues, a court is expected to look into complaints by the nine sacked workers on 17 September. Attempts by Al-Masry Al-Youm to get a comment from the company’s management failed, as managers had evacuated the factory from the start of the strike and left behind only security personnel, and police agents.

Clashes between anarchists and police in Athens

FOCUS Information Agency
8 July 2009

Athens - Anarchists and police offers clashed in Athens during protest rallies against police sweep operations which target illegal immigrants in the Greek capital, according to Greek online news.

Hundreds protested in Athens against “xenophobia and racism” and the government’s measures regarding illegal immigration.

Over the last few days the police have strengthened measures mainly against the illegal immigrants in central Athens. Actions are envisaged to be held for detaining foreigners and placing them in specialized centers.

With the tension escalating, clashes occurred between the protesters and the police - as a result of which tear-gas was used.

Protests were organized in Thessalonica too, where Molotov cocktails were used.

Clashes between anarchists and police in Athens

AFP - Zelaya fails to return to Honduras, violence spirals

TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) — Military vehicles blocked the runway to prevent ousted President Manuel Zelaya from landing in Honduras, shortly after troops clashed with his supporters, killing two, according to police.

Zelaya attempted his return to the crisis-gripped nation one week after he was kicked out of power, as tensions reached breaking point, with tens of thousands of his supporters massed at the heavily-militarized airport.

Shortly afterwards his plane landed in Nicaragua, officials in El Salvador said, adding that he was later due to arrive in San Salvador.

Troops fired tear gas and shot on angry protesters trying to break into airport, killing two and injuring at least two others, police said, ahead of Zelaya's much-anticipated arrival.

In a dramatic climax to the day's tensions, at least half a dozen military vehicles from the same army that sent Zelaya away in his pajamas one week ago blocked the runway as Zelaya's plane circled overhead.

Zelaya spoke live from the airplane on Venezuela's Telesur television, rebroadcast on CNN in Spanish.

"I'm doing everything I can," Zelaya said. "If I had a parachute I would immediately jump out of this plane."

Zelaya said he would denounce the situation in Honduras to the international community.

"From tomorrow the responsibility will fall on the powers, particularly the United States," Zelaya added.

Zelaya was due to join the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay, who shortly beforehand landed in El Salvador, according to local press, along with the head of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza.

The pan-American OAS suspended Honduras in an emergency session the previous night, after the interim leaders refused to reinstall Zelaya.

Interim leader Roberto Micheletti ramped up tensions Sunday by alleging that Nicaraguan troops were moving toward the countries' joint border, a claim Nicaraguan military immediately denied.

"We have been informed that in the sector of Nicaragua, some troops are moving toward the border," Micheletti said in a televised news conference.

In Managua, Nicaraguan general Adolfo Zepeda shot back that the information was "totally false."

Amid growing international isolation, interim leaders also said they had put forward an offer for dialogue in "good faith" with the OAS, after they previously said they were pulling out of the body ahead of the suspension.

But Micheletti also said that no one would pressure him, and still insisted he had taken power in a "constitutional succession."

The OAS suspended Honduras late Saturday in the first such move since the exclusion of Cuba in 1962.

Members of the pan-American body slammed the leaders of the coup which saw the army remove Zelaya at the height of a dispute with the courts, politicians and the army over his plans to change the constitution, which opponents said included an attempt to stand for a second term.

Night time curfews -- which suspend some freedoms guaranteed by the constitution -- and media blackouts have since ramped up tension in one of Latin America's poorest countries.

A freezing of millions of dollars of international aid, regional trade blockades and recalls of foreign ambassadors have also hit the country in the past week.

Chavez, Zelaya's main backer, has said that Venezuela would suspend key shipments of oil to Honduras, which he said would drive up gasoline prices.

Zelaya fails to return to Honduras, violence spirals

Egypt's Strike Wave Continues

Almasryonline.com

The “N-Word”
A political taboo for two decades, nationalization is a recurrent demand in the latest wave of labour strikes in privatized textile firms. Hossam el-Hamalawy reports

The Nile Delta village of Mit Hebeish, 10 minute drive from the southern entrance of the city of Tanta on the Cairo-Alexandria Agricultural Road, is usually a quite place, whose peace briefly gets disturbed every now and then by a microbus driver honking or a tok-tok acrobating its way across the nearby railway lines. Over the past month, however, the town saw Central Security Forces troops clashing with workers several times, amid a militant strike by one thousand workers in Tanta Flax and Oil Company.

Machines in the flax processing plant came to halt on 31 May, with strikers’ demands including: their 7% annual bonus unpaid from July 2008, raising their daily food allowance from LE32 to LE90 (as decreed by the government following the September 2007 strike in Mahalla) and the reinstatement of nine sacked workers including two trade unionists. For 33 days now the workers have been sleeping in the factory, sometimes bringing their families.

A marble signpost on the entrance of the factory once proudly declared the premise to be nationalized and re-inaugurated by Egypt’s former president Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s. The signpost today is fractured, stained with paint, and missing chunks of marble that fell over the years. It is telling of the factory’s conditions.

“The company was privatized four years ago,” said 43-year-old Akkad Tantawi who is among the nine sacked workers. “They sold it to a Saudi investor who has turned our lives into hell. This is the fourth strike we stage in four years. Every year there is one strike.”
From roughly 2,500 workers constituting the factory’s labor force prior to privatization, the number fell down to 1,000 today, due to policies by the management to liquidate the firm, says the workers.

“The company’s ten factories are located on 74 feddans,” said striker Safwat Michel. “The investor wants to sell the plant as real estate. He’ll make a fortune out of this. Do you know how much land is worth in the Nile Delta?” Michel angrily pointed at the rusting machines in the light wood production factory in the plant, “These used to bring wealth. Now they do nothing. The investor promised to modernize the machinery when the company was privatized. We saw nothing of that.”

The accusation of liquidating businesses in the Nile Delta to be sold as real estate is regularly made by other strikers. For example, the Mansoura-Espana Garments Company workers, involved in a series of industrial actions since 2006, accused the owning United Bank of trying to sell the factory to a local businessman as land property. Mahalla workers made similar accusations against their state-owned company in 2007.

The machines in Tanta Flax and Oil Company factories are aging, and so is the labor force. The company, says the workers, deliberately stopped hiring new recruits, a policy which the state-run management was slowly enforcing a decade earlier with the restructuring of the textile sector. The average age of strikers, observed Al-Masry Al-Youm during a field visit, was well above 35 years. Most workers came from peasant backgrounds and did not necessarily receive elementary schooling. Striker Safwat Michel estimated 60% of the labor force depended on extra sources of income like farming the land. Labor experts usually contrast this “traditional” working class, with the “new” working class in cities like the 6th of October, Obour, 10th of Ramadan and Port Said, who are usually younger with higher rates of literacy.

Most production workers interviewed by Al-Masry Al-Youm received on average LE500 a month each, including bonuses, after an average 15 years of service. Around 200 workers are either on temporary contracts or without contracts at all, receiving LE8 a day, like Nagui Halim As’ad, 46, has been working as production worker for nine years.

As’ad, wearing a peasant hat, joined passionately his colleagues in chanting: “No Saudi, No Japanese! Tanta Flax is returning!”… returning to Egyptian state owners-that’s what As’ad and workers interviewed in the factory felt strongly for. “The company should be nationalized,” said Mostafa Ali el-Sawy, 37, who was sacked two years ago after taking part in strike. His colleagues roared in support.

Since the government embarked on its Structural Adjustment Programme in the early nineties, nationalization has been considered passé. However, in past years, the textile sector has suffered with its labor force dwindling from almost half a million blue collar workers in 1991 to almost quarter a million in 2001, which may explain why the “N-word” is now a popular demand in some of the privatized factory. Last March, for example, around 4000 workers in Shebeen el-Kom struck against their Indian management. Their factory was privatized in spring 2007, and since then it witnessed a record 76 strikes in 22 months, according to local press count, amid calls for re-nationalizing the firm.

From December 2006, Egypt has been going through its strongest and most sustained wave of strike action since 1946, when the working class and students staged mass strikes to end the British occupation. The center of militancy in the current wave is the textile sector, where Mahalla triggered on 7 December a Winter of Labor Discontent with its successful four day strike. The Nile Delta textile mills followed suit with wild cat strikes in the winter and spring of 2007, only to be followed by another strike in Mahalla that lasted more than a week in September 2007. The Mahalla textile workers continued spearheading class action, till an aborted strike on 6 April saw the town erupting in a two-day uprising over the prices of bread.

Faced with the strikes, the state-backed General Federation of Trade Unions has reacted largely with hostility, with most of its officials denouncing or aborting protests by workers on the factory floor. The federation, founded in 1957, had never officially endorsed a strike except once in 1993 when the General Union of Mining, Construction and Carpentry lent its support to a brief national strike by the miners. The body is regularly denounced by independent activists as a “state arm.”

The General Union of Textile Workers, headed by National Democratic Party (NDP) member Said el-Gohary, has been under fire from the start of the strike wave. The local union branches stood against the strikes and tried to suspend them, only to be met with workers’ resistance. In January 2007, around 200 Mahalla workers descended on the General Union of Textile Workers’ headquarters in Cairo’s Shoubra el-Mazzallat district. In a stormy meeting with Gohary, they demanded the impeachment of their local union bureaucrats, and threatened to launch a parallel independent union. The local union head was later hospitalized by the strikers in September 2007 when he tried to suspend the strike. Gohary himself has been under attack, yet sandwiched between the workers’ pressures and the government’s desire to “put the situation under control.”

The success of Egypt’s property tax collectors in establishing the country’s first independent trade union in 51 years last December was an alarm bell for the state-backed federation that felt a wave of unionization was at the door step, which could be a silver bullet to the federation and its presence in the labor movement. Federation officials started adopting a more militant rhetoric vis a vis government ministers like the Finance Minister, and lent their nominal support for strikes. Gohary showed up in Shebeen el-Kom last March and denounced the Indian investors. The current strike in Tanta Flax and Oil Company is the second strike in the history of the federation to be endorsed officially by the union, after the 1993 miners’ strike.

But the workers’ patience is running out. Already under police siege, the workers stormed out of their factory gates twice last month, cutting the road in protest of the management’s refusal to negotiate. Another protest in front of the parliament in Cairo was also met with the police troops’ batons and sticks.

“We are staging a peaceful strike,” said Abdel Tawab Sheeha, 59, has been working in the company for 39 years. “The Egyptian governemnt doesn’t understand the culture of peaceful strikes however. They will force us to do other things, to do violence to be heard. They are the ones to blame. No one is hearing our voices out here.” Another worker shouted: “If the government wants a Mahalla, we’ll give them one.”

And while the strike continues, a court is expected to look into complaints by the nine sacked workers on 17 September. Attempts by Al-Masry Al-Youm to get a comment from the company’s management failed, as managers had evacuated the factory from the start of the strike and left behind only security personnel, and police agents. The latter assaulted on Tuesday a video journalist with Al-Masry Al-Youm, banning him from entering the factory to cover the strike.

http://arabist.net/arabawy/2009/07/04/the-n-word/

Egypt: See no strikes, hear no strikes, report no strikes

Menassat

Hundreds of workers at a local factory have been on strike since the end of May, demanding an increase in salaries and back pay that has not been given. On Tuesday, the Egyptian state security reared its ugly head when a foreign journalist attempted to cover the strike.

By JOSEPH MAYTON

CAIRO, July 2, 2009 (MENASSAT) — With dozens of workers gripping the iron rod gate marking the entrance to the Tanta Flax and Oil Company, plainclothes state security grabbed, shoved and punched this American reporter. The workers began chanting as the reporter attempted to record footage of what was happening inside the factory.

“No, you are not allowed to see them. It is forbidden,” said the unnamed state security official who forced the journalist to return to Tanta’s train station.

Unsurprisingly, Egypt has no desire to have foreign journalists cover the workers' strike as it enters its second month, even if stopping them requires violence. Nassar Osman, who identifies himself as a spokesman for the workers, said he wants everyone to see what is going on here.

“The people have not been paid in months, they aren’t getting their promised raises and now they are getting harassed by police because of the strike that is going on here,” he said. Osman was working with the state security officials in order to allow the journalist to enter the factory, but to no avail.

According to state security at the factory premises, a foreign journalist, irregardless of proper accreditation, must secure a “permission” consisting of a paper from the information ministry to enter the factory. However, the foreign press office in Cairo said that “there is no such paper. If the state security says no, then you can’t go in.”

Don't look at the workers

The incident highlights Egypt’s growing concern over the coverage of workers’ strikes and demonstrations in the country. Last year, in the Delta town of Mahalla al Kobra, tens of thousands of Egyptians went to the streets in support of the local textile factory workers who went on strike in demand of better wages to combat the rising costs of foodstuffs.

The government responded swiftly, moving troops into the town to quell the dissent. At least one person was killed in the crossfire and scores of people were arrested, including an American photographer who was briefly detained.

“The way they are treating us here is horrible and they don't even allow foreign journalists to do their job,” said one worker, who was to give an interview after the journalist was forcibly put on a “microbus” and driven to the city center. He added that “because the government has a stake in the company, they don’t want the outside world to see what is going on here.”

Fighting for our rights

But, what is really going on in Tanta? According to reports and workers' statements, a Saudi company purchased the factory this year from the Egyptian government. They promised an annual 7 percent salary increase, but since May, the workers have been conducting daily protests and an almost ongoing sit-in on the factory premises after their salaries did not come.

“We want our money,” said the worker, who asked not to be named due to security risks. He argued that all the workers are demanding are better means to survive and live their lives without worrying about making ends meet.

“We are not paid well and with the rising costs of things and food in Egypt, it is becoming extremely difficult for us to support our families, so we have taken to this action in an effort to show that we are prepared to fight for our rights,” he said.

Police Looking for Journalist

Shortly after the interview began, however, the man received a phone call from a fellow worker who told him that the police were searching for the journalist. Scared, the worker immediately ended the interview and rushed out of the café. According to him, the “microbus” driver that the police had forced into taking the journalist to the train station had been arrested. He did not want to risk arrest.

“I can’t be arrested. My family is too important for me to go to jail,” he said as he paid the bill and rushed off.

This is what the state has done to Egyptian society, says Gamal Eid, the Executive Director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). He says that the state of fear instilled in Egyptian life has limited the amount of discussion toward certain areas.

“Just like workers movements, these people believe that the government can and does come in and arrest people and beat them up for simply expressing their ideas. This is wrong, but the fear is very strong and this is difficult to break,” he argues.

Workers Unite

In Tanta, with the workers holding strong, coverage of the strike has been limited to phone conversations with those inside the factory. With no end in sight for the workers' sit-in, it is difficult to gauge whether they will be successful or not.

“Look at what we achieved in building our own union,” says Mervat Hilal, a deputy of the tax collectors union, the country’s first private workers union. “We were able to create our own union and get our demands heard, so hopefully, others will follow suit,” she continues, pointing to the union established earlier this year and that has been praised as the first step toward guaranteeing workers rights.

The tax collectors held a similar sit-in at the Egyptian Parliament last year, demanding that their monthly salary be increased. With the government unwilling to budge, they formed a private union. It has been largely successful. Their monthly wages have increased from an average of 300 Egyptian pounds ($50) to over 1,200 Egyptian pounds monthly ($200).

Osman says that their example is a major force in keeping spirits high at the Tanta factory.

“We see others have succeeded. I want all to see what is going on here so we can get there, like other people have already done in this country,” he says.

Whether they will succeed is yet to be seen, but with the chanting uninterrupted every day at the factory, the workers’ pressure is growing, as is their international stature. No foreign journalists are being allowed in, but word is getting out.

http://menassat.com/?q=en/news-articles/6748-egypt-see-no-strikes-hear-no-strikes-report-no-strikes

Egyptian Court Upholds Comic Book Ban

Regulating freedom of expression?
Almasryonline.com

Egypt’s First “Graphic" comic book on trial, Jano Charbel attends

In April 2008 Egypt’s first “graphic comic book" - Metro - was pulled off of Cairo’s bookshelves upon the orders of a police officer who perceived that its contents were indecent. Police forces also broke into the offices of Dar El Malamih – Metro’s publishing house – and seized all the copies of this comic book. The police officer who had ordered these seizures submitted his request of confiscation to the General Prosecutor’s Office which in turn forwarded this request to the South Cairo Primary Court. In April 2009 this court authorized the confiscation of the Metro Comic Book. In response, both the comic book’s creator Magdy El Shafee and its publisher Mohamed El Sharkawy filed a judicial appeal before the South Cairo Civil Court against this confiscation order. Several months later, after having examined the contents of this comic book this court issued its verdict on June 23, 2009 – upholding the previous confiscation order.

The court’s verdict mentioned that the comic book “contains many expressions which conflict with public decency, and which conflict with its purpose of serving as a decent cultural work for its readers…" In reaction to this verdict El Sharkawy, the Managing Director of the Dar El Malamih Publishing House said “I cannot believe how comic books are being confiscated and banned in Egypt in the year 2009. I don’t understand the reasoning behind all this. I can’t believe that our freedoms of artistic creation are still at risk in this day and age. There are numerous Egyptian novelists who use far more explicit language in their works, and there are curse words in nearly every foreign movie playing in Egyptian cinemas. Moreover, on the internet there are no restrictions on language or images. However, our freedoms of expression are still at risk in this country." Sharkawy added “I feel let down."

As for Defense Lawyer Ahmad Ragheb, he explained that “I was expecting that this court would reject our appeal for the overturning of the confiscation order. Nevertheless, we are taking this case to the next level, the Appeals Court - on the basis that the initial confiscation order is unconstitutional." Ragheb added “the confiscation orders were executed in accordance to Articles 178 and 198 of the Egyptian Criminal Code. These two articles are outdated, and they allow for unwarranted governmental interference in artistic works. We are arguing that these articles are in breach of the provisions found in Articles 47 and 48 of the Egyptian Constitution – which safeguard the freedom of expression."

Articles 178 and 198 of the Penal Code prohibit the printing or distribution of publications which contravene public decency, and authorize the confiscation of publications which contain offenses to public morals. As for Article 47 of the Egyptian Constitution it stipulates that “Freedom of opinion is guaranteed. Every individual has the right to express his opinion and to publicize it verbally or in writing or through photography or by other means within the limits of the law. Self-criticism and constructive criticism are the guarantees for the safety of the national structure. Meanwhile Article 48 stipulates that “Freedom of the press, printing, publication and mass media shall be guaranteed. Censorship of newspapers is forbidden, as well as warning, suspending or canceling them by administrative methods. In a state of emergency or in time of war a limited censorship may be imposed on the newspapers, publications and mass media in matters related to public safety or purposes of national security in accordance with the law."

Metro had only been on the shelves for one and a half months when it was banned from circulation in April 2008. El Shafee had written and illustrated his comic book over the course of five years, during which time one of his other works won the UNESCO’s gratitude for “best African comic-strip" in 2006. The comic book’s cover bears an Arabic notice reading: “For Adults Only." Its story revolves around a young Cairene software engineer named Shihab who lives in a dog-eat-dog society afflicted with the vices of poverty, political corruption, and economic injustice; all of which are sensitive issues in Egypt. In this fictitious novel, Shehab and his friend Mustafa decide to rob a bank in order to pay back a large debt owed to an illicit loan-shark. The two most controversial drawings in this comic book are those depicting a couple making love on a bed (concealed beneath the sheets,) and a half-naked woman. There are also a few curse words sparsely scattered in the pages - specifically “fag, whore, and pimp/bastard."

Further Charges

Police wasn't the only trouble facing Metro’s maker and publisher. An ultra-conservative lawyer has argued that Metro must be withdrawn from bookshelves on the basis that its comic-strip format coupled with explicit language makes its adult content easily comprehensible to all, including children. More seriously, he has also filed criminal charges against El Shafee and El Sharkawy on the basis of their “immoral works." According to Ragheb the lawsuit leveled against his clients was filed by a “Hesba lawyer" who is “under the misconception that he is obliged to uphold societal ethics and to prohibit that which he perceives as being morally wrong."

This same lawyer is said to have previously filed the criminal charges leveled against the Chief Editor of the independent Al Dustour Newspaper, Ibrahim Eissa, for his alleged publication offenses." Ragheb added that “this self-righteous lawyer has filed criminal charges, according to the provisions of Article 178 of the Penal Code, against both the book’s creator and its publisher on the basis that their actions constitute misdemeanor crimes. If found guilty both El Shafee and El Sharkawy maybe fined up to LE 20,000 and/or sentenced to imprisonment for up to two years. Ragheb believes that his clients shall not be sentenced to imprisonment, but may be fined. In any condition this case may also be appealed. This verdict is to be announced at the Qasr El Nil Court of Misdemeanors on July 18.

Anarchists incite migrants to ‘tear down border controls & make for UK’

The Daily Mail

Riot police descend on Calais as anarchists incite migrants to ‘tear down border controls and make for Britain’
By PETER ALLEN

Hundreds of armed riot police began arriving in Calais today as anarchists pledged to mobilise migrants to ‘tear down border controls and make for Britain’.

More than 2,000 protesters are expected in the northern French port for a week of action.

They want the illegal migrants sleeping rough in the area to be able to get over to the UK as quickly as possible, even if it means fighting the forces of law and order.

Local authorities are taking the situation so seriously that they have already drafted detachments of elite CRS riot control officers into the town.

'We’re prepared for the worst,' said Jean-Philippe Joubert, state prosecutor from nearby Boulogne-sur-Mer.

'Emergency magistrates will also be mobilised to ensure that anyone causing trouble will be imprisoned immediately.

'We don’t know exactly what this group intend to do, but we won’t take any chances. Whatever happens, we’re ready to react.'

A group calling itself ‘No Borders’ is advertising a ‘Freedom of Movement’ camp in Calais next week.

It is calling on protesters from Britain and other European countries to join them in ‘tearing down borders.’

‘Calais is a symbol of injustices committed against the world’s migrants,’ said one, a French anarchist who asked to be referred to as Thierry.

He has already pitched a tent next to the CRS’s temporary quarters next door to Calais port, and expects to be joined by thousands like him.

‘The authorities are taking us very seriously,’ said Thierry. ‘We intend to encourage migrants to ignore border controls and get over to Britain en masse.’

Some 2,000 migrants are based in the Calais area, with many playing a regular game of cat and mouse with the police as they try to get to Britain by stowing away on lorries and trains. There they will claim asylum or disappear into the black economy.

Although the French have pledged to tear down migrants camps in Calais itself, many believe Britain should accept all the migrants who want to go there.

Last month Natacha Bouchart, the mayor of Calais, said the UK’s lax asylum system and benefits culture had ‘imposed’ thousands of illegal migrants on her town.

In a blistering attack in which she also called for millions in compensation, Mrs Bouchart said the UK was entirely to blame for the those who use the port as a staging point.

Mrs Bouchart, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling UMP Party, even called for border controls to be lifted to allow all migrants to flood across the Channel at the earliest opportunity.

Such views are heartily supported by the militants organizing the ‘No Border’ demonstrations, which are set to run between June 23 and 29.

A Calais police spokesman said: ‘Extra officers, including CRS, are being drafted into Calais from a 100 mile radius in order to deal with a threat to public order posed by anti-immigration protestors.

‘The reinforcements have already arrived, with the demonstrations due to start properly next week.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1193397/Armed-riot-police-descend-Calais-anarchists-incite-migrants--tear-border-controls-make-Britain.html

Egypt Reports 10th Case of Swine Flu

Egypt reports two more swine flu cases

CAIRO (AFP)— Two more cases of swine flu were reported in Egypt on Wednesday, a day after five Americans tested positive for the disease in a Cairo campus residence, health ministry officials said.

One case was reported in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and the other in Cairo, ministry spokesman Mohammed Salam said. Both patients were taken to hospital for treatment.

Deputy health minister Nasser el-Sayyed told local television that both patients were Egyptians who had recently come from the United States.

The health ministry said on Tuesday it would extend a quarantine on an American University of Cairo residence in the upscale neighbourhood of Zamalek after five more residents were found to have been infected with the A(H1N1) virus.

The campus was first locked down on Monday after two students tested positive for the virus. The latest cases bring to 10 the number of swine flu infections in Egypt, the most populous Arab country.

On June 2, a 12-year-old girl who arrived from the United States became the first confirmed case of swine flu in Egypt and in Africa.

Egypt had responded to the outbreak of the swine flu in other countries by undertaking a cull of the country's estimated 250,000 pigs.

Egypt is already battling the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed 27 people since it was first reported in 2006.

The authorities have stepped up checks of travellers at airports, quarantining suspected cases in makeshift centres.

Swine flu has now spread to 73 countries with 26,563 people known to have been infected and 140 to have died since the disease was uncovered in April, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gH_vVQkpzT1W_PAjyC_jRnNqlkug

اعتصام مفتوح لعمال شركة النيل لحليج الأقطان

دار الخدمات النقابية والعمالية
اعتصام مفتوح لعمال شركة النيل لحليج الأقطان أمام مجلس الشعب

بدأ صباح اليوم الأحد 24 مايو 2009 ما يقرب من 200 عامل من عمال شركة النيل لحليج الأقطان اعتصاما مفتوحا أمام مقر مجلس الشعب بشارع القصر العينى ، طالب العمال الذين يمثلون فروع الشركة فى المنيا والمحلة وايتاى البارود بعودة صرف بدل الجهود الغير عادية والحوافز التى قامت إدارة الشركة بخصمها بواقع 20 يوما وانتظام صرف المرتبات.

كان عمال الشركة قد أضربوا عن العمل فى أفرع الشركة منذ يوم 29 أبريل الماضى وحتى الآن بعد صدور قرار التخفيض الذى خفض أجر العامل ما بين 200 إلى 500 جنيها دون أسباب واضحة .. حيث قام عمال فرع مدينة المحلة برفع الرايات السوداء على بوابة المحلج ولافتات مدون عليها "دى مش حكومة يا جاهل .. دى اسمها رجال أعمال " ، وصمموا نعشاً لرئيس مجلس الإدارة مكتوب عليه "لا اله إلا الله الصيفى عدو الله" ، فى حين تم الاعتداء على كلاً من محمد نصر مصطفى وشريف الحيص وعبد الهادى عبد التواب ومحمد الرومى من عمال فرع ايتاى البارود بعد أن اقتحمت القوات الأمنية المحلج لفض الاعتصام.

اتهم العمال إدارة الشركة بمحاولة تصفية الشركة والقيام بصفقات بيع يشوبها الفساد مؤكدين أنهم كشفوا عن بيع 3 جرارات لشخص يدعى قدرى عطية بتاريخ 16 مارس بمبلغ 96 ألف جنية ، بالاضافة إلى جرارين لنفس الشخص بتاريخ 21 مارس بمبلغ 64 ألف جنية ، وأربعة جرارات لأحد تجار الخردة بتاريخ 2 ابريل بمبلغ 128 ألف جنية ، و10 مقطورات بتاريخ 21 مارس بمبلغ 40 ألف جنية بمحلج المحلة فقط ، بالاضافة إلى بيع معدات فرعى كفر الشيخ والغنامية خردة وعدد من الأتوبيسات والسيارات بفرع الإسكندرية دون أى تحصيل ضرائب المبيعات!

الجدير بالذكر أن الإدارة كانت قد أصدرت منشور رسمى بتاريخ 30 ابريل الماضى يقرر خفض نسبة الجهود والحوافز المقررة لائحياً من 150% لكل عامل (حسب درجة التقرير الخاص به ) إلى 80% أى تخفيضه بنسبة 70% وهو ما يعادل أكثر من 20 يوما.

يذكر أن عمال شركة النيل قد نظموا العديد من الاحتجاجات خلال الشهور القلية الماضية مطالبين بانتظام صرف المرتبات فى موعد أقصاه 27 من كل شهر أسوة بالعاملين بالدولة وصرف مكافآت المناسبات بالاضافة إلى رفع التقرير العام إلى ما كان عليه قبل أكتوبر الماضى وصرف الحوافز على أساسه وزيادة العلاوة الاجتماعية بنسبة 30% بدلاً من 10% وصرفها بأثر رجعى من مايو الماضى ، وتعيين مراقب مالى من قبل الدولة لإدارة حصص العاملين فى قيمة الأسهم المقدرة بـ 10%.

إن دار الخدمات النقابية والعمالية إذ تعلن تضامنها الكامل مع مطالب عمال شركة النيل لحليج الأقطان
المشروعة تدعوا كافة القوى الديمقراطية فى المجتمع المصرى للتضامن مع عمال الشركة ، وتؤكد على أن ما يحدث مع عمال الشركة لهو نموذج فج لكيفية استغلال رجال الأعمال لحجة الأزمة المالية العالمية للانتقاص من حقوق العمال ، فعمال الشركة البالغ عددهم أكثر من 850 عاملا كانت أوضاعهم مستقرة منذ سنوات طويلة ودون أسباب معلنة ومنذ شهور قليلة بدأت الهجمة الشرسة من قبل إدارة الشركة على حقوقهم بدعوى أن هناك أزمة مالية على الرغم من تأكيدات العمال على أن الأزمة بعيدة كل البعد عن شركتهم.

دار الخدمات النقابية والعمالية
24 مايو 2009

200 Cotton Gin Workers Beaten & Forcibly Dispersed during Demonstration outside Egyptian Parliament

Some 200 workers employed at the Nile Co. for Cotton Ginning staged a protest today outside of Egypt’s Parliament in which they put forth their grievances and demands. They began congregating outside parliament at around 11am and conducted their peaceful demonstration until shortly after 6pm – at which time police forces beat and forcefully dispersed these workers.

Over the past three months, a total of around 850 workers from eight factories affiliated to the (state-owned) Nile Co. have been protesting against their administrations’ fiscal policies and failures. The Nile Co. with its factories in Cairo, El Minya, Alexandria, Zefta, Kafr El Sheikh, Mahalla, Kafr El Zayyat, and Kafr El Ghonnamiya - which produces cotton products, oil and soap - is reportedly incurring losses amounting to millions of pounds, due to neglect and poor administrative planning.

Workers have been complaining about their overdue bonuses, the cessation of production lines, and lockouts - ever since the appointment of the company’s new administrative president, Sayyed El Saifi, in September 2008. The workers raised nine demands:

1.) Resuming production in the factories
2.) Full payment of wages – without deductions
3.) Fulfillment of payments for overdue insurance policies
4.) The provision of workers’ profit-sharing payments – amounting to 10%
5.) Payment of overdue annual bonuses
6.) Payment of all overdue incremental wage bonuses
7.) Prohibiting the sale of the company’s machinery or land
8.) Prohibiting the punitive relocation of workers to other factories
9.) Payment of wages – for the months of April & May

One cotton gin worker said “our local union councils are on our side; Saeed El Gohary at the General Union (of Textile Workers) has expressed his support for our demands but has done nothing; as for (Labor Minister) Aisha Abdel Hadi she says she’s still studying the matter. We have lost our patience and that is why have come to voice our demands here outside the Parliament dome.”

At around 5pm police officers began to harass a handful of journalists who were covering and photographing this demonstration. The officers began to harass us under the pretext of “having taken photos of security forces.” The camera-phobic police officers shouted “you have no permits for such photography.” They confiscated the press card of the Al Dustour Journalist Sayyed Torki and demanded to examine the photographs on his camera. Torki was able to retrieve his press card about an hour later.

It was during this time that the Nile Company’s workers began to debate whether or not they should resort to conducting a sleep-in protest on the sidewalk. They had generally agreed to do so. A few minutes after we journalists had departed (shortly before 6pm,) police officers ordered rows of Central Security Forces to attack, beat, and disperse the peaceful cotton gin workers. They were said to be forcefully escorted away and shoved into public transport vehicles.

I eagerly await that beautiful day when it will be the turn of police officers to receive hefty beatings at the hands of all exploited workers across Egypt.

Remember the Extermination of Egypt's Pigs

The Animal Welfare Examiner:

Shocking slaughter video lands Egypt in hot water, again


The killing of all these pigs is far more tragic than M. Alaa Mubarak's death.

None of these 300,000 helpless animals was infected with swine-flu.
This is mass murder; and it is mass theft - since the owners of these pigs are either inadequately compensated, or are not compensated at all.

Moreover, the World Health Organization has declared that these actions are "entirely unnecessary because the illness is being spread through humans."

These unwarranted actions display the utter stupidity, inhumanity, and brutality of the Egyptian government.

JC

AFP: Egypt pig farmers clash with police over cull

May 3, 2009

CAIRO (AFP) — Egyptian riot police clashed on Sunday with stone-throwing pig farmers trying to prevent their animals from being taken away for slaughter as part of a nationwide cull.

Between 300 and 400 residents of the hilly Moqattam slum district of Cairo, where mostly Coptic Christian scrap merchants raise pigs, hurled stones and bottles at police.

Anti-riot police replied by firing rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, most of them youths. An AFP correspondent said protesters ransacked a police post and an officer fired warning shots in the air.

A security official and pig farmers said in the evening that government workers will return on Monday to begin confiscating the pigs, the government having promised the farmers compensation.

Seven policemen were slightly injured in the Moqattam clashes, a security official said, while at least eight demonstrators were hurt, according to the correspondent and a medic.

One injured protester lay sedated in a neighbourhood hospital bed, with birdshot wounds to his thighs and stomach.

At least five protesters were dragged away by police, two of them bloodied. A community leader later told pig farmers and rubbish collectors gathered at a church in the slum that the arrested men had been released.

"They want to steal our livelihood," protested one of the farmers, Adel Izhak, in the Moqattam area of Manshiyet Nasr, home to about 35,000 scrap and recycling merchants known as the "zabaleen."

Local pig farmers and rubbish collectors, who own an estimated 60,000 pigs, later gathered at the neighbourhood's church, where a priest tried to persuade them to surrender the livestock.

"What have you accomplished? Violence begets violence. The government has agreed to compensate all of you," Father Samaan, flanked by government representatives, said in a speech often interrupted by angry farmers.

Similar troubles broke out on Sunday in Khanka, north of the capital, security officials said.

In the Cairo neighbourhood of Basateen hundreds of farmers clashed with police, injuring a senior officer and four other policemen, according to state news agency MENA.

Egypt began the cull of the nation's 250,000 pigs in earnest on Saturday, despite the World Health Organisation saying there was no evidence the animals were transmitting swine flu to humans.

The authorities are calling the slaughter a general health measure. No cases of swine flu, or influenza A(H1N1), have been reported in Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world.

Egypt's pigs mostly belong to and are eaten by members of Egypt's Coptic minority and are reared by rubbish collectors in Cairo's shantytowns. Islam bans the consumption of pork for the country's majority Muslims.

Egyptian animal rights activist Amina Abaza deplored the slaughter of pigs and said the decision to cull them was probably taken only because they belong to the Copts.

The rubbish collectors, who used the pigs to dispose of organic waste and sell off some animals from their herds once a year, say the cull will affect their business and wipe out a crucial source of income.

Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali, meanwhile, ordered that a psychiatric hospital close to Cairo airport be converted into a quarantine centre to check travellers, MENA reported.

The authorities have said it will take six months to complete the cull of Egyptian pigs and announced plans to import three machines to raise the culling capacity to 3,000 beasts a day.

According to the government newspaper Al-Ahram, the authorities plan to pay out 100 pounds (14 dollars) for each boar slaughtered and 250 pounds (35 dollars) for each pregnant sow.

Egypt has been battling an outbreak of bird flu for three years.

Twenty-six people have died in Egypt from the H5N1 strain of bird flu since it was first identified in early 2006 and the country has seen an increase in cases over the past two months.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hYolUUv3mSkHkS3537SkR9RYOmZA

Calling Cops "Pigs" is an Insult to Pigs

Why are the police called "pigs?"