Egypt general strike and repression

Hopefully I will do a write up of different sources later today, but for those of you that want to read a decent narrative of what has happened please refer to this blog entry by Arabawy.

What is really infuriating me at this point is that the call for general strike probably added to the repression and the viciousness of the crack down. Magdi Hussein of the Islamic Labour Party and Kifaya did not do the Mahalla strikers a service with that posturing announcement.

Bloggers among 95 nabbed

Bloggers among 95 nabbed over Egypt strike

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8hAtGJS3jmBGqYfPIHqK_Vj2WYw

CAIRO (AFP) — Egyptian authorities arrested 95 people including politicians and bloggers on Sunday for inciting unrest by calling for a general strike around the country, a security official told AFP.

"Ninety-five people have been arrested around the country, including in Cairo and Alexandria, for inciting unrest," the official said, adding that workers had failed to heed the call to strike.

Among those detained are opposition leaders including Islamist journalist Mohammed Abdel Qudoos and Magdi Hussein who heads the Labour party, suspended since 2000 after its mouthpiece published articles critical of the government.

Bloggers and members of other opposition parties including the Nasserist and the liberal Ghad parties as well as from the protest movement Kefaya have also been detained.

Despite official claims that the strike action had failed, traffic around the country was unusually light for a Sunday, the first day of the Egyptian working week, AFP reporters said.

Some classes at the American University in Cairo were cancelled and attendance was low at schools and universities, a security source said.

It is unclear who initiated the call which snowballed after some 25,000 employees at the textile plant in Mahalla announced plans to strike from Sunday over low salaries and price hikes.

On Saturday the interior ministry threatened "immediate and firm measures against any attempt to demonstrate, disrupt road traffic or the running of public establishments and against all attempts to incite such acts."

http://leninology.blogspot.co

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/04/mubaraks-police-attack-strikers-provoke.html

Pics from the riot in

Pics from the riot in Mahalla can be found here

http://www.kabobfest.com/2008

http://www.kabobfest.com/2008/04/egyptian-state-goons-round-up-activists.html

I worked with this guy 'sunbula' in ISM. He is a reliable source and speaks fluent Arabic.

this even got in the london

this even got in the london free paper Metro today

Wow, that's pretty big that

Wow, that's pretty big that it got in Metro. It has a huge story in the NY Times and the Herald Tribune. It was all over the front pages of the Egyptian local papers (Arabic, English and French).

I still haven't had time to sift through all the information that's out there. So much is still contradictory. What is clear though is that there were 4 types of protests/strikes on the day

1. workers, mainly in Mahalla and at a few other points of production. though several of the strikes were stopped by police and instead protests were held. the largest one being in Mahalla that erupted again yesterday.

2. student strike/protests - lots of students and professors did not show up for work. however, only in a few universities (mostly notably Helwan and Cairo, and maybe in a few universities in other governorates) there were protests in support of the workers or the general strike

3. activists' protests. the typical Kifaye crowd. no aim, no new tactics. a few people were arrested in small numbers as they turned up in Tahrir Square, while a bunch (up to 1000, though as far as I could tell they were 3-400 at the most) were cordoned off in the Lawyers Syndicate shouting your usual anti-Mubarak slogans.

4. the stay home crowd - through facebook, e-mail lists, sms etc. a stay home "strike" was called. hard to tell how big this group was, but downtown Cairo was unusually empty of traffic and people for a sunday. of course, there was a sandstorm the day as well. some people stayed home not out of solidarity with mahalla or the "general strike", but out of fear that there would be riots or not wanting to get involved.

What I believe is clear is that the strike in Mahalla was in part hijacked by the Labour Party's call (and Kifaya's bandwagoning) for a general strike. Mahalla being a symbol of resistance for various groups were made an example of how far the state is willing to go to repress any discontent, most likely because of the symbolic value. That the workers there or the town rioted two days in a row however shows how strong and deep the frustration and anger with the government is.

Khawaga wrote: Wow, that's

Khawaga

Wow, that's pretty big that it got in Metro. It has a huge story in the NY Times

yeah i saw that.

What began as a widespread call for a general strike ended Sunday as the police cracked down across the nation, dispatching thousands of riot troops, arresting more than 200 demonstrators and fighting with protesters in the north.

Protesters in Cairo complained about rising prices, depressed salaries and what opposition leaders here said is an unprecedented gap between the rich and poor.

While two schools were burned and more than 150 people were reported injured in the northern town of Mahalla al-Kobra, it was the eerie emptiness of the normally teeming streets of Cairo that signaled the depth of discontent with President Hosni Mubarak’s government.

The calls for a strike, which spread quickly across the country mostly by cellphone messages and word of mouth, underscored a new challenge to the government’s monopoly on power: rising public outrage and a growing willingness by workers and professionals to press their demands by striking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/world/middleeast/07egypt.html?scp=1&sq=Egypt+strike&st=nyt