URGENT ACTION: Release Egyptian workers detained for going on strike

Five oil workers arrested for going on strike in Suez, Egypt, have been in prison for more than 40 days. The TUC is supporting Amnesty International's urgent action appeal calling for their immediate release.

Please sign Amnesty International's urgent action appeal

The workers were demanding improvements in working conditions and job security. The men were originally ordered to remain in detention for 15 days, but this has since been extended three times.

The workers were arrested under a law passed by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) last April which criminalising strikes and any other form of protest deemed to obstruct work.

Amnesty International considers them to be prisoners of conscience, who have been beaten, forced to endure humiliating treatment in detention and are at risk of facing an unfair military trial or heavy fines.

Many independent unions have formed since the uprising but their operations are unduly restricted by law, much of it still from the Mubarak-era. Such legislation is contrary to Egypt's obligations under international law.

Click here for more information on their cases.

Please sign Amnesty International's urgent action appeal

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has written to Egypt's Ambassador to the UK protesting against the arrest of the workers.

23 April 2012

HE Mr Hatem Seif El-Nasr

Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt

Dear Ambassador

Striking workers in Suez held by military police

On behalf of the 6 million workers in Britain affiliated with the Trades Union Congress (TUC), I write to voice the TUC's concern about the arrest and detention of five men for doing nothing more than exercising their right to freedom of assembly and their right to strike.

The five men (Mahmoud Farouk Aljundi, Ahmed Mohamed Talaat, Mohamed Issam Syam, Abu Al Yazid Abdul Atti and Hassan Ahmed Al Armouti) were arrested on 7 March 2012 after taking part in a strike, which lasted for two hours, over their working conditions and lack of job security at the Sumid Arab Petroleum Pipeline Factory in the Egyptian port of Suez.

According to information received by Amnesty International the five men have been accused of disrupting navigation in the Suez Canal; blocking a naval base, disrupting the work of a public port and insulting the armed forces. These are charges their lawyers believe to be trumped-up and designed to scare other workers from striking again. In addition Amnesty International considers them to be prisoners of conscience, who have been beaten, forced to endure humiliating treatment in detention and are at risk of facing an unfair military trial.

The TUC calls for the immediate and unconditional release of the men; for the Egyptian authorities to set up an impartial and independent investigation into reports of their ill-treatment, to make its results public and bring to justice those found responsible.

Worryingly, this case is yet another sign of the deteriorating labour rights situation in Egypt, to add to the sentencing of Kamal Abbas, the General Coordinator of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services, and the failure to pass a law on trade union freedoms that would finally bring Egypt into line with the standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Unless there is a significance improvement in respect for labour rights by your government, we will be supporting the reinstatement of Egypt before the ILO's Committee on the Application of Standards at the International Labour Conference in June this year.

I would be grateful if you would pass our concerns to your Government and to know their response.

Yours sincerely

BRENDAN BARBER

General Secretary