Over the past few months I have been working on a video project about torture, so when I heard about the public beating and murder of 28-year old Khaled Sayed Thursday night it came as no surprise. According to blogger Mfatta7, Khaled had either filmed or obtained a video that reveals a number of police officers involved in a drug deal. This is the video provided by his sister:
Once again to most Egyptians neither the police involvement in drug dealing, nor security forces' use of torture for a personal vendetta comes as a surprise. And yet, this time there is an outrage that started on the streets of Alexandria and has spread around the country because the act was done so blatantly... and the news and images have spread online. On Sunday June 6 security agents sought to carry out a random search of the internet cafe Khaled was in. Following Egypt's emergency law amendments such random searches are not legal and he refused. Consequently he was beaten to death, his body was taken to a nearby police station and according to the man's uncle, Khaled's body was later thrown in front of his home.
Meanwhile there is an Egyptian delegation at the UN Human Rights Council trying to whitewash the Egyptian governments image on torture and other rights violations. Reporting from Geneva, Hosam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights told Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm that, the government had pledged to "revisit the articles identifying torture in the penal code." The representatives furthermore promised to set up an "institutional mechanism" to follow up on the commitments made to the council. A similar mechanism the government set up to assess minimum wage needs in 2003 failed to ever meet, much less implement any changes. Aida Seif-Aldawla from the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence told AP, "we live in a country where there is absolutely no law. We want the sacking and trial of the head of the police."
So while government officials bullshit their way through UN apparatuses...
join us at a protest at the Ministry of Interior at 5pm Sunday
I was rudely awoken this morning at 9:30... "are you following the news?" I heard... the only "news" I could think of, was that I was still reeling from the Israeli massacre on the Gaza flotilla yesterday and editing till 3:30am...
Shortly thereafter I found myself in a taxi heading to Nadeem Center to meet up with Haitham to follow the chaos of Egyptian elections for the Council of Ministers. Personally, I have no experience in life that has made me have any in faith in electoral processes.
My taxi driver- 62 years old- told me he didn't have an election ID, nor did he ever have one, nor has he ever known anyone who has an election ID- and he has many relatives, five brothers and over 50 nephews- except for one: a brother-in-law, but he died.
So I ended up in Helwan and this is what I saw:
These voters tried to storm the polling station because they were prevented from voting.
When people asked for the rules, it turns out security were in the wrong and everyone there is was permitted to vote using their nation ID:
But it didn't matter. They weren't allowed in anyway.
They made up a new rule that says unless you have the little red card, you don't get in to vote. So in this last station in a district with 12,000 registered voters, only five entered the polling station to cast their vote, all of them NDP members.
This man is saying (paraphrased)... we live in shitty conditions here, our children can't find jobs, if you would see the poverty we live in, we want change, so we came to vote for it...
And so like anybody would these people held a protest:
I am no fan of organized religion, but I would be in that crowd too, did I not believe in elections to begin with.
I received the following message from a member of the Belfast Palestine Solidarity Committee which has received word from the Free Gaza Movement that those aboard the Irish vessel "Rachel Corrie" have decided to proceed to Gaza. A full press release is expected shortly.
Niamh Moloughney of the Free Gaza Movement has just sent the following message :
>> Ok just got word from Derek, >> they have all agreed to take the Rachel Corrie to Gaza as intended, >> she's 2 days away, it's a Malaysian & Irish partnership >> on board we have Denis Halliday, Mairead Maguire, Derek & Jenny Graham, Fiona Thompson (film) >> and Mathias Chang human rights lawyer, Malaysian MP & media - bios attached >> The Malaysians are serious contenders- they are very close to their government & have FULL support. >> We have 2 days to turn this outrage into a victory & get the Rachel Corrie into Gaza with the support of the world >> and open this sea route. >> Will get press release together when I finish work - hopefully can stay awake! >> all the best, >> Niamh
It's vital that we now give full support to this ship reaching Gaza.
and here the "weapons" found aboard the Marmara where Israeli soldiers massacred 19 activists:
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.
