[R-G] Hossam el-Hamalawy: Mahalla Updates

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

FULL TEXT with LINKS at
<http://arabist.net/arabawy/2008/04/05/mahalla-updates2/>

Mahalla Updates: Police pressures against activists continue;
Solidarity protests planned
Published by Hossam el-Hamalawy April 5th, 2008 in Activism, Economy,
Egypt مصر, Human Rights حقوق إنسان, Labor عمال, Left يسار

Labor organizers are coming under immense govt pressure to call off
the strike plans in Ghazl el-Mahalla, while activists have announced
solidarity protests and industrial actions in Cairo and the provinces…

According to activist sources I spoke with earlier in Cairo and
Mahalla, police troops continue to build up presence in the Nile Delta
town, and left wing leaders are receiving phone threats from State
Security pigs, who also keep summoning labor activists from the
factory for interrogation. The factory itself has turned into a
battleground of open propaganda warfare between the state-backed
Factory Union Committee and the CTUWS faction on one side (and what a
bloody irony when the CTUWS activists were the ones who had initially
led the fight against the govt backed unions!), and the Textile
Workers' League activists who continue to agitate for the strike on
the other. Statements and counterstatements are circulating the
factory floor. A number of CTUWS activists were threatened with
physical assaults by the workers when spotted distributing anti-strike
statements from Hussein Megawer the head of the corrupt, state-backed
General Federation of Trade Unions. The activists fled the scene, and
left the statements hung on the wall, only to be torn down by the
workers. Mohamed el-Attar, one of the CTUWS activists, phoned
Ad-Dustour labor correspondent Mostafa Bassiouni. Attar was fuming,
after Mostafa ran a report exposing the anti-strike pledge signed by
Attar and four other labor leaders, and threatened Mostafa with a
lawsuit. Meanwhile, the Textile Workers' League called on the media
outlets to boycott Attar and Co accusing the latter of losing
credibility… Management officials in the different departments and
production sectors are showering the factory floor around the day with
calls against the strike, and the Gharbeia Province governor showed up
in Mahalla and met with a group of the management as well as police
informers in the factory to discuss how to sabotage the industrial
action… This comes at a time when the ruling National Democratic Party
in the Gharbeia Province is suffering from internal splits, with
disaffected members demonstrating against the candidacy selection
process in the local council elections. One NDP member was even
arrested by the police for distributing statements in solidarity with
the 6th of April strike! I'm told also the state-backed union
officials in Ghazl el-Mahalla are holding daily "training sessions" on
"labor culture" for the factory workers, i.e. intensive classes of
anti-strike brainwashing and govt propaganda…

Movie star Khaled el-Sawy and singer Mohamed Mounir are among the
first celebrities to come out in support of the strike… Kefaya has
announced it's staging protests in solidarity with the Mahalla
strikers in Cairo (11am, Tahrir Sq) and in seven other cities, while
Tadamon activists have started distributing a statement calling on the
citizens to support the Mahalla strikers. Doctors Without Rights are
staging a protest from 2 to 4pm in front of their syndicate in
downtown Cairo… In Giza, the Real Estate Tax Collectors will
demonstrate Sunday noon, and In Alexandria, the teachers postponed
their scheduled 5th of April protest to the 6th, so as to coincide
with the Mahalla strike. Anticipating a police crackdown on the
demonstrations, a coalition of human rights groups have set up an
emergency legal clinic at the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, listing phone
numbers of activist lawyers in Cairo and the provinces to be contacted
to report arrests or request legal aid. I was told also leftist
activists, possibly joined by Islamists, are to stage solidarity
protests in Ain Shams University on Sunday. Demonstrations in Cairo
and Helwan universities are confirmed, and I'm waiting for
confirmations from other universities.. As for the American University
in Cairo, I'd like to share with you parts of a message I received
from one of the lecturers…

     I wanted to let you know about some of the ugly dynamics at
     AUC regarding the strike. One of my students reports for the
     Caravan, the student newspaper, and tells me that the
     administration has banned them from doing any reporting on
     the actions on the 6th, even independently. There's also all
     sorts of misinformation swirling around campus about legal
     and other repercussions for students and/or foreigners who
     go anywhere near the actions. Of course, AUC admin is
     delighted to be heading to the Sahara for precisely this
     reason- they think they won't have to deal with the public ever again.

In the Beheira province, home to Kafr el-Dawwar Textile Mill, State
Security pigs have also summoned a number of workers for
interrogation, after statements were distributed in the factory
calling for a solidarity strike with Ghazl el-Mahalla. Leftist
activists in the town are under heavy police surveillance…

In Cairo, the secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud
Ezzat, denied in an interview on the group's Arabic official website
his group's support of the general strike, while the most senior MB
lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud assserted they were not planning to
mobilize in Ghazl el-Mahalla. Mr. Abdel Maqsoud however forgot to
mention that the Islamists are marginal in the factory politics and
that the MBs in specific were denounced by the strikers last
September… In contrast, MB and Egyptian Islamists in Europe are coming
out in suport of the strike…

It seems a demonstration is planned in London, while international
solidarity statements have started arriving…

-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>