This is called Shocking Video: ‘Blue bra’ girl brutally beaten by Egypt military.
By Johannes Stern:
Egyptian junta stages coup against parliament
15 June 2012
The US-backed Egyptian military junta dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament yesterday in a military coup. This came only two days before the run-offs of in Egypt’s presidential elections—the first since the ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak amid mass working class protests last year.
The decision by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) junta to dissolve parliament was preceded by a ruling of the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC). It suddenly declared the electoral law under which the parliament was elected in November-January unconstitutional.
The SCC, a court composed of judges appointed by Mubarak, ruled that one third of the seats in parliament were invalid because candidates of political parties were elected for seats exclusively reserved for independents.
The junta’s preparations for the ruling made clear that its main political target is the Egyptian working class, and that its main fear is the renewal of the working class struggles that brought down Mubarak last year. Before the court ruling, the junta tightened security in Cairo. Tanks were deployed in front of the heavily guarded courthouse.
See also here.
CROWDS marched to Cairo’s Tahrir Square again yesterday after the April 6 movement called for a protest starting at 5.00pm (1500 GMT) ‘against the soft military coup’: here.
Over 23,000 textile workers in the Egyptian town of Mahalla al-Kobra went on strike for higher wages at the weekend: here.
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Court overturns ‘martial law’
EGYPT: Following the defeat of General Ahmed Shafiq in the presidential election at the weekend a court has suspended the military council’s ruling allowing military police to arrest civilians.
The military council made the ruling when it held uncontested power earlier this month, causing uproar among activists who said that it was akin to imposing martial law.
A court official said that judges had suspended the decision following complaints from lawyers.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/120684
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Strike at Ain Sokhna Port, managers detained
Workers at the Ain Sokhna port detained six managers in their efforts to win a dispute over payment of shares in the company.
Last week 600 workers staged a demonstration against the company’s failure to adequately distribute 2011 profits, reported the Daily News Egypt. Members of the port workers’ syndicate told reporters that workers were told “they would not be able to expect this crucial part of their salaries before September.”
Dubai Ports World (DP), with more than 60 ports worldwide, had promised disbursement of the shares in April.
In February, workers staged a similar protest demanding an increase in profit shares. The standoff hit critical port operations, costing DP an estimated LE50 million before an agreement was reached with the company.
http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jul2012/wkrs-j06.shtml
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WHY EGYPT MATTERS:
IMPORTANT REPORT BACK FROM EGYPT’S REVOLUTION
U.S. Lawyers & Activists Return from Fact-Finding Mission to Egypt
Tuesday, July 10, 2012, 7:00pm
33 West 14th Street New York, NY
Join us for an updated analysis on one of the most important people’s movements of our time.
Followed by Strategy Session: Building a Global Solidarity Movement
Speakers: Hoda Mitwally, Coalition to Defend the Egyptian Revolution; NLG Egypt Delegation Members Suzanne Adely, Lamis Deek, Michael Letwin; Ali Issa, War Resisters League and OWS Global Justice Working Group
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U.S. activists, lawyers, and scholars recently took part in a fact-finding mission to Egypt aimed at studying Egypt’s ongoing revolution, investigating the role and responsibility of the U.S. government and corporations in human rights abuses against the Egyptian people, and documenting the ways in which more than thirty years of U.S. military and economic intervention has violated Egypt’s popular sovereignty and locked the country in a web of international debt.
Recent decrees reinforcing the power of the military regime, escalations in violence against protesters, increased arbitrary detentions, military trials, and further restrictions on worker’s rights to organize, all indicate that the Egyptian revolution is under threat. The U.S. government and corporations have played and continue to play a pivotal role in maintaining a repressive regime in Egypt.
Now more than ever, it is vital that we in the United States hold the U.S. government alongside corporations accountable for their complicity in the crimes committed by Egypt’s repressive regime.
In every way, Egypt’s fight is our fight. Egyptians are the 99%, fighting for social, political and economic justice. The same 1% that arms the Egyptian dictatorship commits systematic violence in this country against the Occupy movement; antiwar and solidarity activists; and Arabs, Muslims, and other communities of color.
We ask you to join us in mobilizing to defend our Egyptian brothers and sisters as we build towards a long-term, international campaign to defend their revolution and the global revolution for dignity, freedom and social justice.
SPONSORED BY: NYCoalition to Defend the Egyptian Revolution
CO-SPONSOR: National Lawyers Guild-International Committee
ENDORSERS: OWS Global Justice Working Group, Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions and State Repression, DRUM Desis Rising Up and Moving, Labor for Palestine, NYC Labor Against the War, International Socialist Organization, United National Antiwar Coalition-NYC, International Action Center, Socialist Action, Pakistan USA Freedom Forum, TUPOCC-NY Chapter……
For more information or to endorse: http://www.defendegyptianrevolution.org and defendegyptianrevolution@gmail.com
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Egyptian textile workers strike spreads
A strike by 20,000 workers at the state-owned Mahalla Misr Spinning and Weaving Company against corrupt management and for a greater share in profits is threatening to spread to a number of neighbouring governorates.
The textile company employs 24,000 workers and became a symbol of the explosion in industrial militancy across Egypt after two successful strikes in 2006 and in 2008. These were important stages in the development of the uprising that toppled the Mubarak regime last year.
On Tuesday, the strike entered its third day and had been joined by workers at seven other textile plants in Alexandria, Mahalla and two other Delta cities.
A series of video interviews posted on menasolidaritynetwork.com quoted one worker, Faysal Laqusha, saying, “The revolution didn’t bring anything to the workers of Misr Spinning in Mahalla. Back in 2006 we were getting profit-sharing bonuses of four-and-a-half months. Other people are getting more and we’re getting less. How can they bring in someone like Fouad Abd-al-Alim [new head of the public sector Holding Company for Textiles and Garment Production]? He was the most corrupt one here. He destroyed the factory in Mahalla and is destroying the rest of the public textile factories. The workers here are making the revolution again from the start. The coming revolution will be a workers’ revolution.”
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Hundreds of Egyptian workers protest Saudi-owned company over pay
Around 350 workers at the United Sugar Company (USCE) protested at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Suez governorate on Monday to demand a pay increase.
USCE is majority-owned by the Saudi-based Savola Group. A 20-day sit-in at USCE’s factory in Ain Sokha port has brought production there to a halt. USCE workers also went on strike in February to demand a greater share of company profits.
The Savola Group has full ownership of four Egypt-based companies, as well as other interests in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. It saw gross profits increase from $234.6 million to $269 million in the first quarter of 2012, according to the company’s web site.
http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jul2012/wkrs-j20.shtml
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Sit-in by gold miners in Egypt’s Red Sea region
Around 1,500 miners staged an open-ended sit-in Sunday in the Red Sea flagship Sukari gold mine of Centamin PLC, in opposition to the decision of the mine’s operating company, Centamin-Egypt, to lay off several mine workers.
The workers had previously demanded wage rise of 60 percent as a hazard fee, as stipulated in the Egyptian Mines and Quarries Law, in addition to pay 10 percent of profits as worker bonuses.
“The sit-in comes after almost a month of warnings by workers. In June, they reportedly asked the worker’s office to intervene in securing their demands. When that failed, workers announced a 15-day countdown, after which they launched the current sit-in,” said Ahram Online.
The decision to lay off workers came after months in which workers had called for the implementation of the Egyptian Mines and Quarries Law and equal pay for Egyptian and foreign workers.
On Tuesday, management fired 29 workers including members of the executive office of the independent workers’ union. On Wednesday, Centamin PLC said it had halted operations at its gold mine. A strike at the mine, in March, based on the same demands, resulted in the closure of the company for a week.
http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jul2012/wkrs-j27.shtml
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