Day of Anger

In memory of those who lost their lifes, got torturted and abused, sacked and imprisoned in connection with the events of April sixth 2008, in Mahalla al Kubra and elsewhere, and also in solidarity with those making their voices heard today, in what is called the Day of Anger by the organizers. And also in support of the brave workers whom have lead by example, over the last years, and also won some battles.

April Sixth 2009

There has been reported clashes on Ain Shams Campus, and following arrests, were students are said to be held in Madinet Nasr first precinct, with laywers there, but students being denied legal counsel so far. At Helwan students in their hundreds are staging a sit in , campus demos in Mansoura(flickr photo set) and Asyut as well. As for the center of gravity last year , Mahalla has had a heavy police presence, but everything is calm in the city accoding to Muhammed Maree.

There was five people arrested in Menoufiyya at dawn today, four of them students, and one belonging to Kefaya.

As a prelude to today, there was 30 arrested in Kafr ash Sheikh, among them two female students Omniyya and Sarah whom were putting up posters for the previous strike, now only known as ¨the day of anger¨, there have also been reports on arrests in Port Said, Tanta, Fayoum, and Alexandria prior the events today.

There is live coverage from Cairo University here. Background can be found at the Arabist here. Zeinobia also has some background info, as well as continues updates. As always Arabawy is a key source for information about this. And the tool that had it´s first 15 minutes of fame during last year´s events is still a reliable source for minute by minute news, just use the twitter tag #6April and you´re up to date.

This is just a rough first quick attempt on the run to scribble down quick notes, more later.

22 defendants in Mahalla trial sentenced to 3-5 years

The Tanta Supreme Security Court judge al Sayyed Abdel-Maaboud issued verdicts today on the 49 defendants in the case concerning events in Mahalla on April 6th-7th. 22 defendants received prison sentences of 3-5 years and 27 were acquitted.The charges brought against them could have rendered a maximum of 15 years imprisonment.

One of those convicted was a 58 year old woman ,Fawzeya Hafez El Shinnawy, she was sentenced for carrying a molotow cocktail. She, togheter with four others facing prison terms were tried in absentia.

Prior to announcing the verdict the judge, Al Sayyed abd al Maaboud stated that :

¨price rises were a global phenomenon and not the fault of the Egyptian government and he praised the restraint of security forces in quelling the demonstrations¨.

My thoughts on the judges statement

While i hope to see the judge statement in full soon, i will give my quick thoughts on the statement above.

While the hounorable judge is perfectly correct in his assumption that the price rises is in some parts indeed a global phenomenon(a subject that the judge has little expertise knowledge about, i´m sure.), and aknowledging the rapid response of the government just days after the riots when a delegation of ministers, headed by PM Ahmed Nazif headed to Mahalla to speak with the workers. Also recognizing the effort of the government in giving a 30 percent salary raise to government employees.

This is in my humble view, all good things , albeit too little, and too late, it´s merely a temporary band aid, and further more, just a week after announcing the wage increase, a law was rushed through parliament, putting into effect steep price raises on petrol and tobacco, meaning that some of the wage raise, is taken away from those who got it in the first place. On top of that the inflation has kept on increasing and peaked in July to it´s highest in 16 years, since then having dropped, but still significantly over 20 percent, with the November numbers at 20.9, this, despite the fact that the Central Bank is doing all it can to get the Egyptian economy back on track. I havent mentioned the bread crisis, that the government was ultimately responsible of, but after a very slow start, handled in a way that might come close to adequate.

The statement of the judge regarding the security forces showing restraint during April 6-7th, is nothing but laughable, considering the manyreports of torture and ill-treatment , and the only picture that flashes through my mind, is a very vivid one of young teenagers in their hospital beds, being handcuffed to the bed.

I have a hard time understanding the necessity of a judge passing judgement on anythinhg, but his specific case. I´m really not keen to know his views on how the government economical policies toward the food crisis faired, nor am i concerned with his views on how good the security forces behaved. What would intrigue my curiosity is how the hounorable judge, views an investigation that is said to have contained a lot of anonymous secondary sources, i would like to know his views on the alleged torture of defendant Hamada Tewfiq, these are questions that i want answered by the judge, because these questions is within the frame of his work related expertise. I guess that unanswered questions is also answer, highly respected right hounorable judge.

Background to trial

The last working session of the trial before the verdict was held on November 13th.
The 49 was refered to Court on June 17th, and the trial started on August 9th.

The occurence of emergency trials has been critizised by Egyptian and international Human Rights Groups alike, due to lack of fair trial standards and the absence of the possibility to appeal the verdict.

My sympathy and thoughts goes out to the 22 convicted and their families, especially the 58-year old supposedly ¨molotow¨ lady, and her family, regardless of the fact that she´s still at large. My thoughts also goes to the three who lost their lives during April 6-7th, among them 15-year old Ahmed Hamada, none of these deaths has been investigated , as of yet.

Sarah Carr has a photo set on her flickr account, from the Tanta Court house today.

The Hisham Mubarak Law Center issued a list of trial No 5498/2008, the verdicts, and those convicted here(each one has a number, their names dosen´t appear, i´ll try to present a list of those convicted, as well as those acquitted later on today).

Mahalla trial resumes today

The trial involving the remaining 49 defendants from the April 6th strike resumes today. It was originally reffered by the Public Prosecutor to the State Security Court in Tanta on June 6th and the trial began on Aug 9th, when the defence managed to postpone the trial in order to be able to read the prosecution material. They didn´t manage to get the defendants out on bail though.

I´m much too tired to write anything half decent right now, crawing for bed, but i want to give you some reading material about the trial and then i will follow events more thouroghly as they develop.

Amnesty International issued a statement just prior to the second session was about to begin on Sept 6th, were the charges are stated, and includes:

Assembly of more than five people with the aim of disturbing public order and security; deliberate destruction of public and private property; ransacking and theft; violent resistance and assault on police officers during the exercise of their duties; and illegal possession of firearms.

If convicted they face up to 15 years’ imprisonment.

AI calls upon the proper authourities to end the processs in the Supreme State Security Court, which is a emergency court, without the normal legal safeguards for the defendants. AI calls on the authourities to hold the trial in a normal court of law that offers the defendants the opportunity of a fair trial.

Amnesty International is urging the Egyptian authorities to:

* rescind the decision to refer the defendants to the emergency court and order a retrial before an ordinary court and ensure they receive a fair trial.
* release immediately and unconditionally those protestors found not to have used violence; the others must be given a fair trial in accordance with Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law and standards.
* open a full, independent and impartial investigation into the killings of the three people in Mahalla. In particular the investigation should focus on the circumstances in which police used lethal fire and ensure that any officers or other officials responsible for using or ordering excessive force should be brought to justice.

Arabawy gives us an eyewittness account from the first court session in Tanta on Aug 9th here

Sarah Carr gives us an equally important account from the opening of the second session on Sep 6th here.

Sorry for the poor quality of blogging, but it´s more important that you have the tools, than me packaging it neatly right now.

You can also use the fustat search and look for the words April 6th, General Strike Mahalla and Burg al Arab and you will find more material.

Interview with Muhammed Marei after being released

Muhammed Marei was released from Burg al Arab prison on July 6th, Sarah Carr interviewed Muhammed on his ordeal during 90 days in prison, first in Mahalla first precinct police station , then state security in the same town , where he was kept in solitary confinement for 19 days, before finally recieving his administrative detention order. He was then taken to Burg al Arab prison close to Alexandria , known to be one of the toughest prisons in Egypt. What took place there is well known, due to a letter sent by Muhammed during his time there via his lawyer. He was allowed to sit the exams, he´s a fourth year veterinary student, but the authorities messed up his arrival, so the exams had already started, meaning that he would automatically fail the exam, so he has to do the whole year once again.

49 of the detained on the 6th and 7th of April in connection with Mahalla have been referred to court, they are awaiting trial.

Muhammed Marei and 3 other Mahalla detainees released

According to Sarah Carr´s twitter account , Muhammed Marei and three others, detained during the April 6th strike in Mahalla have just been released. Muhammed Marei was the translator, and friend of the american journalist/photographer James Buck, whom provided some of the best images from Mahalla on April 6th and onwards. Marei and Buck was both taken into custody at the Mahalla police station, and while Buck was released after some days, Marei´s whereabouts where unknown for quite some time , until he was located at the Burg al Arab prison, close to Alexandria. I presume that the other three where also among the Burg al Arab detainees that were beaten by guards, in order to end their hungerstrike last week.

Two Weeks ago, 49 people were reffered to Court in connection to April 6th.

This is still breaking news, and a proper follow up, will come , as more news become available.

Mabrouk to Muhammed and the others!

UPDATE: It seems that there were only three released including Muhammed, the other two are Mustafa Bedeir al Sayyed and Rageb Gaber al Mahdy according to their lawyer Ahmed Ezzat of the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression. All three have been held in administrative detention in the infamous Burg al Arab prison, they were supposed to be released on Friday via the Police Station in Tanta( Vhy not via the police station in Mahalla, that was the place of arrest for Muhammed Marei for sure, and most likely for Mustafa and Rageb as well?, which is the normal standard procedure).

UPDATE II: Muhammed Marei seems to been jiggled about between Tanta, Samnoud and Mahalla and then back again to the Police station in Samnoud (yesterday evening at about 10:30 P.M) and was still awaiting his release at that point. So until late in the eveniing yesterday, he was still not released. As to Mustafa Bedeir al Sayyed and Rageb Gaber al Mahdy, there is no further information, than what´s been stated by their lawyer, Ahmed Ezzat( see above), to my knowledge.

UPDATE III Sunday afternoon - Muhammed Marei is finally released according to Torture in Egypt.

Beheiri , Fayoumy and Amin released from Burg al Arab

Karim al Beheiri , Kamal al Fayoumy and Tareq Tareq Amin, the Ghazl al Mahalla workers that were detained in connection with the April 6th strike was released from the Burg al Arab prison on June 1st.

"We were subjected to electric shocks, to beatings and there was no food and or drink for the first few days," blogger Karim el-Beheiri told AFP a day after his release. "We went through weeks of torture and humiliation."

Beheiri, Tarek Amin and Kamal al-Fayoumy, three worker activists, were arrested on April 6 at the Misr Spinning and Weaving company in the Nile Delta industrial city of Mahalla after riots which left three people dead and hundreds detained.

An interior ministry official confirmed the three had been released but denied they had been mistreated.

"These are false accusations," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Everything took place within a framework of human rights."

I´ve been living in my own bubble for the last ten days , working on a presentation that i had yesterday, so i didn´t hear about it until this instant, more on this as i catch up with this happy piece of news.

Mabrouk Karim, Kamal and Tareq!

Letter from Burg al Arab prison

This is the letter from the three detained workers from Mahalla, Kamal El-Fayyoumy, Tareq Amin and Karim El-Beheiry who are being held at Burg al Arab prison. This was provided in translation by Amnesiac and Sami Ben Gharbia posted it on Global Voices advocacy. Originally in Arabic by Yasari Masri here

I´ve been meaning to post this yesterday. It´s addressed to the judges club and their dynamic chairman, Zakaria Abd al Aziz. I will post it in it´s entirety below. Burg al Arab is one of the toughest prisons in Egypt, another prisoner of Burg al Arab is of course Abd al Karim Nabil Soliman, aka Kareem Amer, the blogger sentenced to four years on for insulting Islam and the President. His been facing some very rough treatment during his stay at Burg al Arab.

Let´s not forget Kamal, Tareq , Karim and Karim.

We, three political detainees, address the letter below to the Judges’ Club and its head Zakareya Abdel Aziz from the Borg el-Arab Prison in Alexandria…

Dear Sir,

A week has passed on our hunger strike and we are extremely weak. We are appealing to you as the last and only resort for all who have suffered injustice in Egypt.

We would like in the beginning to correct certain information which has reached the press about our (the three of us) having been transferred to the prison hospital as a result of our hunger strike.

The truth is that we are still in prison after the administration refused to call an ambulance to take us to hospital, and as a result of the inability of Karim el-Beheiry and Tareq Amin to stand on their feet - as a result of their extreme weakness. Instead, a “nurse” was summoned to examine Karim, whose condition has seriously deteriorated.

We would like to know the reason why we remain in detention. We will continue the hunger strike until we either die or receive this information.

We were tortured in the state security headquarters in Mahalla on the 6th, 7th and 8th April. Officers tortured Karim using electricity while Tareq Amin and Kamal el-Fayyoumy were insulted verbally and physically assaulted. We then spent eleven days in Borg el-Arab prison in a cell with individuals with criminal convictions. When the Tanta court ordered that we be released we were held for four days in the El-Salam police station [noqtat shorta] situated between Mahalla and Tanta before we were taken to Borg el-Arab prison were we began our hunger strike.

From our detention cell, we call on you and all political currents to take action and apply pressure in order to secure the release of all those detained in connection with the events of Mahalla.
Signed
Kamal El-Fayyoumy, Tareq Amin, Karim El-Beheiry
Detained workers from Mahalla
Borg el-Arab Prison
Wing 22, Cell 5

UPDATE: The chairman of the Judges Club, Zakaria Abd al Aziz has written a letter to the Public Prosecutor requesting him to open an investigation into the matter of the three detainees in Burg al Arab.

UPDATE II

A second letter from Burg al Arab by Kamal al Fayoumy, Tareq Amin and Karim al Beiheri can be found here (Arabic). This came as an investigation began at the Mahalla Prosecution Office of six workers at the Ghazl al Mahalla factory, in connection with the events of April 6th. The six included Kamal al Fayoumy and Karim al Beheiri from Burg al Arab ,as well as Gehad Tammam, Mostafa Fawda, Gamal Abul Assad and Wael Habib, the last one, being the only one present during the investigations.

He is charged with various offences under Article 124 of the Egyptian Penal Code, including inciting other public sector employees to go on strike, possession of documents, interrupting work in the factory, and conspiring with others to print documents which led to the events of April 6.

Why isn´t Tareq Amin included in the group? And why wasn´t anyone, but Wael Habib present?

Hamzawy/Herzallah part II

In April, Amr Hamzawy and Mohammed Herzallah wrote a Carnegie Policy Outlook paper on the local elections in Egypt. I wrote about it in a blogpost . Yesterday the
duo penned an article for WaPo´s Think Tank Town, with the title: Egypt's Unrest in Perspective.

A sample:

Remarkably, the regime seems to have abandoned the option of using political reforms to defuse socioeconomic tensions. Instead it has consistently tried to contain social strife through a combination of repressive measures that included arbitrary arrests, and minor economic conciliatory measures like expanding the welfare beneficiary pool and raising wages in the public sector. This stands in contrast to what happened in the 2003-2005 period. The political openings of those years followed the economic difficulties the country was experiencing as a result of the government's decision to float the national currency. Among the political reforms introduced in this period was eased control over opposition activities, constitutional amendments allowing multicandidate presidential elections, and toleration of political participation by the major Islamist opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

A similar wave of political reforms by the regime seems far less likely today, as a trouble-free presidential succession, anticipated for 2011, seems to surpass any other considerations. In fact, developments on the ground suggest that the regime has completely recoiled from the reform agenda and returned to old authoritarian habits.

In the next paragraph Hamzawy and Herzallah mentions the 34 amendments of the constitution(the most thorough change in the current constitution since it was introduced in September 1971), rushed through parliament, before taken to a referendum in March 207 as a serious blow to political reform. It was more than that, it was the Dance of Death for top-down controlled political reform for the foreseeable future, that is post-succession, presumably sometime after 2011. What was packaged and introduced to the people of Egypt as the single most important part of political reform, was in fact the complete opposite. It was an integral part in creating the political infrastructure for a de facto continuation of the dominant party within the ¨democratic facade¨ system that has been serving it´s purpose since the re-introduction to multi-party life in Egyptian politics in 1975-76. Creating a chimera of political reform within the existing system, while closing down practically all avenues for the Muslim Brotherhood, who runs in elections as Independents.

It will also limit other Independents from having a fair chance of getting elected. This will of course also have a side effect in terms of fixing the current problem within the NDP with renegade members of parliament not deemed necessary or good enough for re-election on the NDP ticket whom until now, has had the option of running as Independents against the official NDP-candidate in his constituency(the only reason for me chosing the masculine form is to show the lack of female candidates , despite the rhetoric of the higher NDP-officials) , and in many cases upset the official party candidate in the past two parliamentary elections of 2000 and 2005. Clearing the path for people with ¨new vision¨ .

Nothing in the last 14 months suggests a change in that patern, the way the two elections held after the amendments , Shura and local elections was conducted leaves in terms of obstructing the MB as well as the legal opposition from participating. The prolonged military court case of Khairat ash Shater and harsh verdicts. The way of dealing with the opposition press, bloggers, labour activists and facebookists is indeed no new policy. It´s the new vision , with the same old spectacles. If anything the patern has become clearer.