Schweppes workers protest imminent unemployment due to Coca-Cola merger

Mada Masr
Schweppes workers protest imminent unemployment due to Coca-Cola merger

Sunday November 16, 2014

Jano Charbel

 

For the past 17 days, some 850 workers have been protesting against their imminent dismissals as the Coca-Cola Egypt Company negotiates the purchase of the Schweppes Egypt Company. Dismissals of part-time workers and the deployment of a private security firm at the Schweppes factory have led workers to protest across the country, at their company’s eight branches.

An ongoing sit-in protest has been in effect since October 30 at the Schweppes factory in Cairo’s industrial satellite town of Sadat City, while protests are also being held at the company’s seven distribution branches in Giza, Cairo, Alexandria, Mansoura, Tanta, Ismailia and Assiut.

Moreover, this week the Schweppes Company’s drivers have been threatening to halt all distributions, in light of the non-renewal of their corporate drivers’ licenses.

Abdel Latif Emara, president of the local union committee at the Schweppes factory told Mada Masr, “Our first demand is to retain our jobs, in accordance with the country’s labor law.”

According to Ashraf Aboul Ela, secretary general of the union committee at the Schweppes factory, “It appears that both of these beverage companies are agreeing to sack us 850 workers, regardless of the law.”

Unionists have pointed out that both the Schweppes and Coca-Cola companies would be violating Egypt’s Unified Labor Law (12/2003) by sacking workers in the course of their merger.

According to Article 9 of this law “Mergers of establishments… shall not terminate the employment contracts of the establishment’s workers.”

Aboul Ela added that “our employers don’t care about the rights of us workers. These heavy-weight businessmen think they are above the law. They believe that us workers must willingly abide by the employers' whims.”

Aboul Ela went on to state that “the Ministry of Manpower is only concerned with us calling-off our sit-ins and protests. The officials there insist that there must be no protests during the course of their negotiations with these two companies. However, our protests and sit-ins are the only means by which we can push for our legally-stipulated rights.”

Workers are troubled by their imminent unemployment and the subsequent poverty for their family members.

Emara explained that the vast majority of workers at the Schweppes Company are over the age of 40 or 45. "It would be very difficult at this age, under these poor economic conditions, to seek new job opportunities. The livelihoods of our families and their well-being depend on these jobs we have."

The list of the Schweppes workers demands include: retaining all employees and maintaining all contracts, in light of the labor law; the payment of overdue profit-sharing payments (amounting to 10 percent of profits), which have not been paid over the course of 18 years; provision of all overtime work payments, unpaid over the course of 18 years; renewal of truck drivers’ licenses, and the maintenance of these distribution vehicles; provision of healthcare plans, which have been halted since September 30; and in case of subsequent dismissals, payment of six months wages per every year of service spent at the company.

Media spokespersons at both the Schweppes Egypt and Coca-Cola Egypt companies could not be reached for questions at the time of publication.

*Photo courtesy of Klmty Net

Actor accused of grand treason for criticizing Sisi's security record

Mada Masr

Actor accused of treason for criticizing Sisi's security record

November 17, 2014 

Lawyer Samir Sabry has filed a lawsuit against actor Khaled Abol Naga for criticizing President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s security record.

Sabry accused Abol Naga of treason, inciting against the Sisi administration and threatening society’s general well-being.

In a video appearance during Cairo International Film Festival, Abol Naga had criticized Sisi and the security apparatus’ performance, one year after the Egyptian people gave the president a full mandate to fight terrorism.

“If you cannot secure [Egypt] without sacrificing the people’s rights, you should not stay in your position. If you cannot do this [securing the country], then leave, go away. It seems that we are going to say it again very soon,” Abol Naga told reporters.

Sisi’s supporters launched a massive smear campaign against Abol Naga on social and private media channels in retaliation. In a phone interview with the privately owned Sada al-Balad channel, Sabry told talk show host Ahmed Moussa that Abol Naga is a homosexual.

“Anyone who slanders his president, state institutions and security is not a man — he is a homosexual,” Sabry said.

Abol Naga responded by threatening to sue all those who defame him.

“My right to sue every media body or other who is a part of the campaign against me for my rightful opinion on Sisi's failure is reserved,” he said on his Twitter account under the hashtag “down with the mentality of the military.”

“The country needs [us] to say it again: Leave,” he added, addressing Sisi.

Abol Naga dismissed the smear campaign against him as a sign that the presidency is “nervous.”

“The igniting campaign against me in the media just because that Sisi was not up to his promise [in fighting terrorism] after one year says only one thing: the regime is nervous. Why?” Abol Naga wondered.

A group of Twitter users created the hashtag #Support_Naga to send out tweets in support of the actor. Some referred to Article 65 of the Constitution granting the right to freedom of expression in any medium.

The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) issued a statement on Monday lambasting Sabry’s lawsuit and the ensuing smear campaign against Abol Naga.

“Such an incident, which was preceded by the incident in which a complaint was filed to withdraw Bassem Youssef’s nationality for cheap accusations of criticizing President Sisi, is an indication of what we are facing in this period by those who flatter the regime or those who seek fame,” ANHRI said.

Rights delegation slams Sisi's "police state" urges int'l action

Middle East Monitor

Legal delegation to Egypt slams al-Sisi's "police state" urges international action

Thursday, 13 November 2014 15:26

An international legal delegation to Egypt has slammed the government's repression of its political opponents as characteristic of a "police state", at the launch of a new report in London today.

The International Coalition for Freedoms and Rights (ICFR) presented the findings of its fourth and most recent delegation in the presence of two members of the group, solicitor Roger Sahota and retired solicitor Michael Ellman, who spoke of their findings.

According to the organisation's Secretary-General Anas Altikriti, the ICFR is a global network of legal, human rights, and media experts, whose main concern is the events of July 2013 and Egypt's regression in the move towards democracy. It was inaugurated a year ago, and seeks to document, archive, and report back on the progress or lack thereof towards respect for human rights in Egypt.

The press conference took place shortly after Egypt's appearance in Geneva for its Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council. Two other speakers at the press conference, chair of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council Dr. Maha Azzam, and barrister Toby Cadman, attended the UPR and discussed the event surrounding the review.

Speaking first on the delegation's trip to Egypt 11-15 October, Sahota criticised the authorities' denial of access to ousted Pres. Morsi's trial, despite repeated applications and advance communication with the relevant parties.

Based on testimony from lawyers of other defendants, and drawing on the frequently-cited Human Rights Watch report of August this year, Sahota expressed concern that the trial of Morsi, as well as others, did not meet international standards for fairness.

According to Sahota, the delegation met with a variety of persons, including detainees' relatives, the families of the deceased, students, lawyers, trade unionists, politicians, and also some government officials.

"We heard disturbing accounts of indiscriminate arrests, torture in detention, the targeting of student and political activists – evidence of a deliberate strategy to deny political detainees the basic rudiments of due process."

Addressing the content of Egypt's UPR in Geneva, Toby Cadman emphasised that the point they repeatedly made to countries' representatives was that any dissatisfaction with a democratic government is to be expressed through the ballot box, not the barrel of a gun.

Cadman described the situation in Egypt today as a "classic anatomy of a dictatorship, being taken point by point, unfolding daily." The extent of the human rights violations, he said, was such that you can go through "treaties article by article" and see these abuses "occurring consistently" in Egypt.

Both Cadman and Azzam pointed to a host of areas of great concern, including the Egyptian authorities' policies in the Sinai Peninsula, where, according to Cadman, "10,000 people have been uprooted and their homes destroyed."

According to Cadman, the UPR was a "PR disaster" for the al-Sisi regime – part of the context, he suggested, for the announcement that foreign prisoners could be returned to their home countries.

The ICFR report and delegates emphasise the need for the international community to take action, and ensure accountability for human rights abuses. "It would be easy for us in the international community to turn a blind eye to what is happening in Egypt when those events are competing with stories from Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and Libya", said Sahota.

"It may be politically convenient for the West to see Egypt as a key partner in its security and political goals in the region, but I would urge that these violations be addressed and for it to be made clear that there's no place for these atrocities."

Ellman echoed the report findings by describing conditions in Egypt as those of a "police state", one that is "still heavily subsidized by the USA who don't dare call it a coup."

Cadman said that what is really important is not so much what happened in Geneva but what comes after – whether there will be any pressure to address the serious concerns raised. "The international community cannot deal with Egypt like it is business as usual."

Criticism, including that from the U.S., if it is to mean something has to translate into accountability through a block on arms sales and cessation of trade agreements, he added.

Maha Azzam claimed that the international community was "waking up," and that the "pressure is on," in Geneva, London, Brussels, and elsewhere. "Not for 'political' reasons," she added, "but because we believe the citizens of Egypt need to have their rights upheld and respected by the state, and that the violations that have happened are so extreme that they can't be ignored."

Azzam urged a UN investigation into the Rabaa massacre, as well as accountability for the perpetrators of atrocities through travel bans.

"Under the guise of a war on terrorism," Azzam said, "civil liberties are being denied to Egyptian citizens."

"Closing the political space for those that respect the democratic process whatever their ideological leanings is a very dangerous development," Azzam expanded, in response to a question from Middle East Monitor.

"It means the choices are between authoritarianism and extremism. The promotion of democracy is the best way to combat extremism: the volatility of a dictator is not the way to promote democracy or fight terrorism."

French & Egyptian journalists detained in café for discussing politics

Mada Masr

French, Egyptian journalists held in café for discussing politics

November 11, 2014 

French journalist and Chief Editor of Le Monde Diplomatique Alain Gresh was held for two hours on Tuesday, along with two Egyptian journalists, in a downtown café after they were overheard discussing politics.

“I was sitting with an Egyptian journalist and an Egyptian student speaking in English and Arabic when a woman listening to our conversation screamed at us, saying ‘you will destroy the country’,” Gresh told Mada Masr.

The woman then stepped outside the café and proceeded to talk with security forces, who came and interrogated Gresh on his reasons for being in Egypt.

“They took my passport and IDs from the journalists, before returning 30 minutes later with my passport, saying they would hold on to the IDs,” he said. “Then they asked if I have a work permit that allows me to work in Egypt.”

The security forces told Gresh he was free to go, but he refused to leave until his colleagues were allowed to go with him. All three were released two hours later.

Gresh expressed surprise at how easily one can be arrested and turned over to the police, adding that he knows full well how difficult it is for journalists to practice, but that today he learnt so first hand.

According to Mostafa Bassiouny, a journalist and friend of Gresh’s who was following the issue, members of the Journalists Syndicate and the National Council for Human Rights spoke with the head of the Qasr al-Nil Police Station, who told them that the woman at the café had overheard Gresh and the two women discussing politics, so she reported them to the police.

Gresh, 66 years old, was born in Cairo and left at the age of 14 in 1962. He is considered one of the most prominent journalists specialized in the Middle East, and has visited Egypt frequently since 1972.

Government proposes ban on news coverage of military

The Guardian 

Egypt mulls military news ban

 

Proposed law would outlaw coverage of armed forces’ activity without prior approval from senior military officials

 

November 7, 2014

 

Patrick Kingsley

 

 

Egypt is considering whether to ban news about its armed forces, after the cabinet drew up a draft law that would outlaw coverage of military activity without prior approval from senior military officials, several Egyptian newspapers have reported.

The proposed law would ban “the disclosure or display of any news or information or statistics or data or documents relating to the armed forces or its formation or movements or equipment or work or plans”, according to a leaked version of the legislation.

The army is the single most influential institution in contemporary Egypt and revered by a majority of Egyptians. But its critics have drawn attention to the lack of oversight in the military budget, and lack of accountability for its alleged human rights abuses, including the disappearances of hundreds of civilians inside military institutions.

Human rights groups denounced the proposed law as the latest of many moves aimed at extending military control over the country and ending the freedoms gained after Egypt’s 2011 uprising.

It follows the placement last week of large parts of Egypt’s civilian infrastructure under military jurisdiction; the banning of unlicensed protest last November; several mass shootings of demonstrators; and the effectively arbitrary detention of tens of thousands of both secular and Islamist opposition members over the past year.

It also comes days before a likely crackdown on rights-focused NGOs that activists fear will begin on 10 November.

Commenting on the proposed law, Mostafa Shaat, a researcher at the Cairo-based Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, said: “It’s really shocking to know that people in Egypt can’t yet access the basic information about where their money is spent.

The law should be seen in the context of the ongoing crackdown on the public sphere and the unprecedented limitations and restrictions that the army has recently imposed. This law, if ever enacted, will violate people’s right to access information and to their right of expression.”

But many may disagree, with a significant proportion of Egyptians supportive of a return to authoritarian order, exhausted by the upheaval created by the 2011 uprising, and frightened by a wave of terrorist strikes that have hit Egypt since last summer’s regime change.

Seventeen editors of major state and private newspapers last week agreed to avoid criticism of the state, reiterating “our rejection of attempts to doubt state institutions or insult the army or police or judiciary in a way that would reflect negatively on these institutions’ performance.”

Egyptian officials have consistently denied accusations of widespread torture and judicial irregularities. Hisham Badr, a foreign ministry official, told UN ambassadors this week that critics of Egypt’s rights record were “dealing with conditions in a country other than the Egypt in which we live.”

Spokesmen for Egypt’s presidency and foreign ministry said they needed to speak to colleagues before commenting on the proposed law.

 

 

*Photo courtesy of Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Four killed, eight injured in clashes between Islamists & security forces

Reuters 
Four killed in clashes and attacks across Egypt - sources

November 7, 2014

(Reuters) - At least four Egyptians were killed and eight wounded on Friday in separate incidents involving Islamist protesters and militants across the country, security and medical sources said.

Violence has polarised Egyptians since the army overthrew elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last year following mass protests against his rule.

Small hit-and-run demonstrations are the most Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood can muster after a fierce security crackdown in which hundreds have been killed and many thousands detained.

One civilian was killed and two others wounded by gunfire in northeast Cairo during clashes between Islamist protesters and residents, a security official said.

Further south in the province of Fayoum, a 17-year-old Islamist protester was killed during clashes with the police, medical and security sources said. Five others were wounded, including three policemen.

Security sources said a soldier and a civilian were killed and one person was wounded when gunmen opened fire on an army checkpoint near the Suez Canal city of Ismailia.

The Brotherhood maintains it is a peaceful movement and denies involvement in anti-state violence that the government says has killed more than 500 people, mostly police and soldiers, since Mursi's ouster.

Attacks are often claimed by Islamist militants based mainly in the Sinai Peninsula, where the Egyptian army began clearing residents last week to create a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip following attacks that killed 33 soldiers.



*Reporting by Mohamed Abdellah and Yusri Mohamed; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Andrew Roche

Egypt's defense of human rights record "pathetic attempt at cover-up"

Reuters 
Four killed in clashes and attacks across Egypt - sources

November 7, 2014

(Reuters) - At least four Egyptians were killed and eight wounded on Friday in separate incidents involving Islamist protesters and militants across the country, security and medical sources said.

Violence has polarised Egyptians since the army overthrew elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last year following mass protests against his rule.

Small hit-and-run demonstrations are the most Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood can muster after a fierce security crackdown in which hundreds have been killed and many thousands detained.

One civilian was killed and two others wounded by gunfire in northeast Cairo during clashes between Islamist protesters and residents, a security official said.

Further south in the province of Fayoum, a 17-year-old Islamist protester was killed during clashes with the police, medical and security sources said. Five others were wounded, including three policemen.

Security sources said a soldier and a civilian were killed and one person was wounded when gunmen opened fire on an army checkpoint near the Suez Canal city of Ismailia.

The Brotherhood maintains it is a peaceful movement and denies involvement in anti-state violence that the government says has killed more than 500 people, mostly police and soldiers, since Mursi's ouster.

Attacks are often claimed by Islamist militants based mainly in the Sinai Peninsula, where the Egyptian army began clearing residents last week to create a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip following attacks that killed 33 soldiers.



*Reporting by Mohamed Abdellah and Yusri Mohamed; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Andrew Roche