Ahmed Sha'ban's Uncle Believed Kidnapped

Mohamed Abdel Fattah has received a call one hour ago from Ahmed Sha'ban's cousin, his father- who spoke out in the video in my last post- has disappeared. The family believes the Ministry of Interior to have kidnapped him.

This is the consequence for those who speak out against police violence and government corruption in this country.

Here another report from John Jensen and Ian Lee from Daily News Egypt:

Once Again: Egyptian Police Torture To Death

The information gathered from blogs and videos of interviews with Sha'ban's family members:

Ahmed Sha'ban was on his way to a wedding, when he got into an argument with a police officer he was taken into the infamous sidi gaber police station. I have carried out interviews with victims of that same station, where a rule of law seems to exist that is determined at will by the officers who run the station.

Ahmed's family members searched for him and asked for his whereabouts at the sidi gaber police station but were informed he was not there. After three days an anonymous called contacted Sha'ban's family and informed them that the 19 year old's body was found in a nearby stream and that they suspect suicide. In the morgue the family found his skull cracked open and his body bruised. The family and lawyer believe him to have been tortured in sidi gaber police station. The case very reminiscent of a similar case of Khaled Said earlier this year.

Here a video with Ahmed Sha'ban's relatives, partial translation in English follows:

@ 2:30 A friend of Ahmed's: we buried him but we are not at ease, his rights are lost.

@ 2:50 Ahmed's uncle: occupation is lighter, we want to know when will we be liberated from them, this police. What is the police's role? To stand with us and govern us with justice or to take us and kill us?

@3:00 Ahmed's uncle: President Mubarak you are sleeping and the world is turned upside down and you know how things are being run around here. It is impossible that you do now know what is going on... mercy you don't know what it is. You employ people to threaten us so that you can sit on your chairs, while we are being killed while you can rule us. We going to liberate our country, these are going to liberate it, we have an occupation, we are going to go run after the people, you just flee every time. When will you leave president Mubarak, when will you and your cronies leave us. What are you and all your ministers doing? You have been there for years and have done absolutely nothing. You carry out injustice, this boy you killed him.

@ 3:55 A friend of Ahmed's: when we went to ask about Ahmed at the police station we heard 70 other voices crying out, "enough," "enough, we haven't done anything, this is evil."

another day protesting a police state

Tuesday morning witnessed a 200+ crowd of protesters outside the Alexandria court house where the trial of Khaled Said's murderers was taking place.

شهد صباح الثلاثاء حشد من اكثر من 200 متظاهر امام محكمة الاسكندرية القائمة علي محاكمة قتلة خالد السعيد
Long-time activist leads chants: "The Ministry of Interior is the official overseer of the drug trade in Egypt"
قاد الناشط السياسي المخضرم الهتافات : " وزارة الداخلية هي الراعي الرسمي لتجارة المخدرات في مصر



As protesters try to enter the cordoned off rally security agents follow orders and use force:



Government-hired hagglers hold up signs reading "the judges represent us, the police are honest," and calling protesters "traitors." They also chanted against the gathered protesters calling them "Jews."

اسأجرت الحكومة بعض الافراد رافعين رايات مكتوب عليها : " القضاة يمثلوننا ؛ و ضباط الشرطة صادقين" منادين المتظاهربن بالخونة اليهود.



The officer in charge stands by and oversees the comedy like a puppet master:
وقف الضابط المسئول يشرف علي هذه المسرحية الكوميدية و كأنه محرك العرائس.





As the court house lies on one of Alexandria's main roads, hordes of bystanders gathered, standing witness to the true trial taking place on the streets. The judge inside the court house postponed the hoax case to September 25.

Eventually all protesters were permitted to leave the security force cordon.
و حيث ان المحكمة تقع علي احد شوارع الاسكندرية الرئيسية ؛ تجمع حشد من المتفرجين يشهدون المحاكمة الحقيقية في الشارع.
اجل القاضي المحاكمة المزعومة الي 25 سبتمبر .

و اخيرا سمح للمتظاهرين بمغادرة كوردون قوات الامن.

Amonsito & The Inner Workings of State Violence

On 28 April Ahmad Ezz, appearing on Christiane Amanpour’s CNN show, spoke with pride of the demonstrations staged daily in front of parliament by “good Egyptians.” He went on to remark that the image of Egypt “stifling dissent… with no freedom of expression, is far from the mark.”

Sunday 23 May, proved claims of the Egyptian regime’s stifling dissent to be right on the mark.

The morning started with escalations by the workers of the Amonsito factory. Their union representatives were due to meet with Minister of Manpower and Immigration Aisha Abdel Hady and General Union head Hussein Megawer at 10am that morning.

What was to be discussed once more was the government’s backing out from a deal singed on 21 March between Bank Misr, the government’s Ministry of Manpower and Immigration and the worker’s union. Following the signed agreement the government-owned bank backed reduced the agreed upon amount of LE106 million to be paid out to the 1700 workers, to LE50 million.

Over the past week the workers have been progressively escalating their acts of protests in an attempt to get the government and the passers-by attention.

Sunday morning the workers were using whistles, chanting and beating the barricades the police uses to cage them onto the sidewalk. The deafening noise could be heard multiple streets away, drawing the attention of anyone in the vicinity. On Friday, some of the workers ripped their clothes and wrote message of dissent on their bodies.

Their calls of protest have reached a new level of urgency.

On Sunday the messages on their bodies and torn clothes included, “the thieving government,” “I want my rights.”

Around 1pm the union representatives returned from the parliament building with bad news. The head of the General Union and Manpower Minister had stood their ground and would not return to negotiate the original 21 March agreement.

After the announcement of this news, the workers tried to enter the gates of the parliament upon which security forces encircled them. When some of the workers managed to break through the barricade, the forces attacked them with wooden sticks, beating them severely and then arrested seven of the workers.

Minutes later many of the workers had dispersed all over town, Ragab Khidr was taken to a nearby hospital having loosing consciousness after security forces beat him over the head. Khidr later received stitches to his head.

Security forces did not spare Amonsito union head Khaled al-Shishawy, who also received multiple blows to his body. While showing me his wounds, he explained, “security forces faced us, the officers beat us up with their batons, we kept trying to hold back their blows.”

The representative of the 1700 workers went on, “we’re not leaving even if they shoot us. May they detain us all and put us behind bars.”

Four hours later security had forced all the workers away having threatened them with further use of violence and without having released the initial seven kidnapped workers.

The government-aligned Radio Misr station announced later that day that the workers had gone home, after having come to an agreement with the government.

Just a few minutes walk away from the Amonsito protest site, security forces forced similar sit-ins of the Nubariya and the Helwan Telephone Company from their sites of protest.

Al-Shishawy ended his statement saying, “I hope the world knows what democracy is like in Egypt, we are only asking for our rights.”

NDP parliamentarian Ahmad Ezz will have to drive to work tomorrow on streets cleared of protesters.

For the workers, the government spokesman’s words have never rung so hollow.

International activists coming to Egypt to protest Israeli Siege and Violence on Gaza find themselves facing Egyptian Siege and Violence.

Bored Police one day turn Violent the Next:

Follow on with Sam and Ali.