Swedish activist shot in West Bank

An activist from my home town Gothenburg was shot in the leg with live ammuntion during a peaceful protest against the Wall in the West Bank village of Nil'in yesterday, the Swedish press and the ISM reports. One Palestinian man was also injured.

I've been to a couple of these demonstrations, who take place every week, and they always follow more or less the same script: A peaceful march, followed by light scuffles with Israeli troops and border police. It usually ends with a highly unequal stand-off between the young boys of the village, who throw rocks against the soldiers, who in turn respond with (potentially lethal) rubber-coated bullets and tear gas - and occasionally live ammunition. Sometimes the soldiers start firing at the demonstrators as soon as they reach the outskirts of the village.

In December, two Palestinian children was killed during a demonstration in the same village. I don't know the exact circumstances of this last incident, but one thing is certain: Everyone killed or injured while voicing his or her opposition to the Wall, the illegal settlements, and the occupation, is another victim of the apartheid system being constructed in the West Bank.

Pic above: Medics attend a young Palestinian injured in his hand after being hit by a tear-gas canister fired straight at him from close range, march 2006.

Solidarity campaigns to break the siege of Gaza

As media attention is drifting away from the situation in Gaza, several initiatives is being launched to draw attention to the ongoing siege. Activists in Egypt are launching a "March on Gaza" as the starting point of an ongoing international campaign. And Brittish MP George Galloway is organizing a "Valentine to Palestine" aid convoy, leaving from London on 14 February and passing through countries in Western Europe and North Africa before reaching Rafah.

Meanwhile, I stumbled upon this old blog post (in English) from 2006 by the current Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, condemning Israel's and the Europeans Union's decision to boycott and isolate the recently elected Hamas government as a "policy meltdown of dangerous proportions." Back then, while still in opposition, he wrote: "In Europe, I have yet to meet anyone who genuinely believes in the policy that is pursued." It's too bad then, that Mr Bildt didn't demand a change in this policy when his party was elected to power four months later...

More on railway struggles

Sarah Carr reports for The Daily News on yesterday's railway strike. El-Badeel also has a report, emphasizing the expressions of solidarity from train drivers with the striking signal operators and crossing watchmen. According to El-Badeel, railway workshop workers are also threatening to go on strike in the coming week, putting the Egypt National Railways under intense pressure from a large part of its workforce.

Another train strike

For the second time in less than a week, trains stopped moving at Cairo Station in Ramses just before noon today. This time it was the signal operators who went on national strike, bringing train traffic to a halt all over Egypt. Their main demand was to receive wages equal to those of the drivers. The strike was suspended after about three hours, apparently after the workers received a (informal) promise that at least some of their demands would be realized within 48 hours. Meanwhile, the train drivers are already waiting impatiently for a decision to be made on their promised bonuses before the end of the month.

As a delegation of signal operators and union officials were negotiating with the deputy manager of the Egyptian Railways Association, a group of drivers, conductors and others were having an intense discussion in the drivers rest-house next to the tracks. It was quite hard for me to follow, but it was revolving around the problem of how to achieve unity among the various groups of railway workers.

While drivers, conductors, maintenance workers, and now signal operators have all taken separate industrial action during the last two years, they have not been able to present a united front towards the management. This is in part because their financial situation is very different - many drivers earn between 700-1700 pounds a month, while maintenance workers can earn less than 200 - but also because the different nature of their demands: drivers for example have asked for an increase in the kilometre allowance, which does not apply to signal operators or maintenance workers. Differences like these are constantly exploited by the management and exacerbated by the general ineffectiveness of the state-controlled union.

One thing that do unite the workers is their mistrust of the state union. One driver I spoke to was very critical of the union, saying it is "only talking, nothing else. We have heard the same promises for months now, but nothing ever happens."

At one point during the discussion, one of the drivers identified a man present as a plain-clothes police agent and abruptly (but non-violently) deported him outside the rest-house, shouting: "Get out! And I never want to see a policeman here again!"

"Doctors withouh rights" challenge illegality of strikes in hospitals

An administrative court has postoned the hearing of a case raised by "Doctors without rights," challenging a decision from 2003 banning strikes in hospitals, until the 1st of February - el-Badeel reports. The group argues that the ban on strikes in hospitals is illegal, since the right to strike is granted in the constitution as well in international agreements signed by Egypt. They also insist strikes by doctors is not against the interests of patients, but a legitimate means to improve their wages and their ability to offer good services.

Photographers protest police violence

Click the pic for a set on flickr of today's protest against police violence against photographers. This protest was originally planned for October, but was postponed by the leadership of the Photographers Association after the interior ministry offered to hold "dialogue" on the issue of police brutality. Apparently, the heads of the association decided to endorse today's protest only when they realized it was going to take place anyway.

Update: Here is a report from Sarah Carr.

Mahalla and the struggle for free unions

As Sarah Carr reported, Mahalla independent union activists ended their sit-in on Saturday, after eight days, without reaching any agreement with the management. They also said they would go on with their plans to establish a free union of the textile workers in Mahalla, in respons to the refusal of the official state-controled union to act on their behalf.

While the Mahalla activists first started to talk openly about forming their own union in December, after the real estate tax collectors formed the first independent union in Egypt since the 50's, the need for a union that genuinly represents the workers and defends their interests has always been at the heart of their struggle.

The strike in Mahalla in December 2006, which help spark a wave of social protests in Egypt, came right after state security services had intervened to exclude thousands of independent and opposition candidates from union elections held in November. And some of those who ended up representing the workers in negotiations during the strike had been thrown out from the local union committee just weeks before. This pattern has been repeated in other places since then, so one might say that the state's attempt to strenghten its control of the official unions backfired by convincing workers all over Egypt of the need for independent organization.

Now, my understanding is that the 22 workers who staged the 8-day sit-in in response do disciplinary measures taken by the management, including wage-cuts and transfers of workers to other branches of the company, are more or less the same as those who negotiated for the workers during the second strike in September 2007. They have constituted the de-facto union leadership in the factory since then, in the eyes of the workers. This means that the disciplinary measures taken by the management should not be seen just as a response to the anti-privatization protest that took place in the factory last October. Instead, that event was probably used as a pretext for eliminating or silencing all the independent union activists (including those who agreed to cancel the strike that was planned for 6 April last year - so giving in to pressure from security and the state union at one point is no guarantee that you won't be a victim of repression later...).

Given the symbolic importance of the Mahalla factory (being the largest factory in the Middle East and also, as Joel Beinin pointed out to me in a recent interview, one of the first to be nationalized by Nasser) and the impact a free union there might have on the rest of the textile industry, the state will do all it can to break all such attempts. The 6 April events also showed that the state is prepared to use violence against industrial workers to a far greater extent than it would against state functionaries, like the tax collectors. This means that if the workers in Mahalla are to succeed, they are going to need need a big portion of support and solidarity from social and political forces within Egypt as well as internationally.

Pic above: Women workers demonstate outside the factory gates on 30 October 2008, protesting alleged plans to privatize the factory and accusing the management of corruption.

Women demonstrate outside "top secret" Israeli embassy in Cairo

Around 20 women demonstrated against the war in Gaza outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo today, demanding the expulsion of the Israeli embassador.

Click the pic for a set of photos I took before the police intervened.

Not surprisingly, there was a huge presence of plainclothes police and state security agents. One man demanded to see my camera, but when I innocently asked to see some identification he instead pulled back his coat and flashed his gun, yelling "police, police." When asked why photography was not allowed, he said the area was "top secret," but refused to acknowledge the presence of the Israeli embassy. Kind of funny, considering that the roadblocks and the discrete but clearly visible Israeli flag on a nearby building gives away the location of the embassy to anyone who wants to know, and considering that many ordinary Egyptians around the square were snapping away happily with their mobile cameras without any intervention from the police. And while I understand that photography outside foreign embassies can be a sensitive issue in any country, it's more difficult to understand the security risks involved in taking pictures in the direction of the Zoo...

Daily News Egypt: Security Forces Turn Back Gaza Solidarity Convoy

Click the pic of Mohamed Gaber for my report in Daily News Egypt about the solidarity convoy on Friday. Also, Hossam al-Hamalawy posted a translation of the full statement from the organizers.

Civil disobedience in the police state

Around 100 Egyptian and foreign activists, accompanied by journalists and camera crews from several TV-channels, took part in a solidarity convoy to Rafah yesterday. It was organized by the Egyptian Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian People, in order to demand the complete opening of the Egyptian-Gaza border. Few expected that the convoy would actually reach the border, myself included. But through a clever use of civil disobedience the caravan of 2 buses almost reached el-Arish before being turned back. According to the organizers this is closer to Rafah than any solidarity convoy of this scale has reached since 2004.

The group of activists managed to force three checkpoints by staging sit-ins in the street, effectively blocking traffic and causing panic among the police as trailer trucks and minibuses lined up from both directions. At the fourth checkpoint however, about halfway between the Suez canal and el-Arish, state security officers was present. After forcing the reporters of two TV-channels to turn back to Cairo - for reasons that soon became obvious - they allowed the convoy the continue with a police escort. While many of the activists at this point felt they had won the battle and were about to enter el-Arish, this soon turned out to be a trap.

10-20 kilometers before el-Arish, in the middle of the desert, the road was blocked by 4 central security trucks and a small army of police in full riot gear, including some with rifles probably loaded with rubber bullets or tear gas. With no TV cameras or witnesses present, the activists feared (and rightly so) that they would be assaulted as soon as they stepped down from the bus. Some wanted to get out anyway, but the bus driver refused to stop or open the door. Shouting "I can't, I can't" he turned the bus around, clearly horrified by the scene and knowing he was risking as much as the activists - or more - despite having nothing do to with the convoy.

While most of the participants had expected to be turned back by the police and several have plenty of experience of being arrested at demonstrations, many were chocked by this show of force, and terrified by the prospect of being surrounded by riot police and plainclothes officers in the middle of the desert. And even those who would have preferred to try and at least make a symbolic stand in front of the bus feared this would only lead to the loss of all photo and movie material taken on the trip so far.

On the way back to Cairo the mood on the bus consisted of mixed feelings of achievement - for reaching further than previous convoys - and anger and frustration. "The thing that makes me most angry," leftist blogger and digital design artist Mohamed Gaber explained, "is the fact that we celebrate the return of Sinai [after the 1973 October war] as a great victory, but still it doesn't belong to the people."

Above: The troops stand ready to confront the dangerous peace activists.

Below: a truck driver coming from el-Arish pass the demonstration on a side road, showing his support by honking his horn and giving double thumbs up (presumably steering the truck with his feet!?)

Socialists demonstrate - and another security crackdown

Socialists and other opposition activists demonstrated in front of the Press Syndicate today in solidarity with Gaza, denouncing the complicity of the Egyptian regime in the Israeli blockade and assault. (Click the pic for a small set on flickr.)

There was also massive security presence in and around Tahrir Square today as the Muslim Brotherhood had called for a demo. A group of demonstrators actually succeeded to assemble briefly in front of the Mogamma but I didn't hear any chanting and they left peacefully when ordered to by plainclothes security agents. Also, the same officer who confiscated the memory card of my camera on friday was there and stole another card before letting me go. You now officially owe me approx. 200 Egyptian pounds, mr I'm-really-tough-when-backed-up-by-an-army-of-riot-police-and-thugs.

The MB website reports that checkpoints was set up at entrances to Cairo since early morning to prevent people from other governorates to participate in the demo. I was at the 'aboud bus station, connecting Cairo to the Delta, around 4 and can confirm that the place was swarming with plainclothes officers and uniformed police. Also, in the nearby street leading towards Shubra I counted to 32(!) central security trucks - I haven't seen that many in one place since on 6 and 7 April in Mahalla el-Kubra.