Egypt: Workers Charged over Protests, 9 February 2017

Egyptian prosecutors should drop all charges against at least 26 workers who were arrested and charged in recent months in connection with peaceful strikes and protests, Human Rights Watch said today. The parliament should also revise a new trade unions draft law to fully legalize independent unions and amend penal code provisions that criminalize the right to organize and strike. Since May 2016, police have arrested scores of striking workers from various industries. Most were later released, but prosecutors have referred dozens for trial, including some before a military court. In December 2016, security forces arrested at least 55 striking workers at the Egyptian Fertilizers Company, and prosecutors summoned eight for investigation. [A representative for the Egyptian Fertilizers Company told Human Rights Watch that police tried for 10 days to convince workers occupying control rooms to leave before “very peacefully” ending the sit-in. The workers returned to work the following morning. He said that halting production was a crime and acknowledged that prosecutors summoned several workers, but said the administration had not made complaints against them during the investigations. Workers denied the administration’s allegations that they stopped the production or occupied the control room.]…The January strike in Suez followed a sit-in at the privately owned IFFCO oil products factory in the last week of December seeking an equal distribution of bonuses between workers and supervisors. The workers decided to strike after Interior Ministry officers arrested two members of the IFFCO Independent Workers’ Union who had been participating in the sit-in, according to a workers’ statement published in local newspapers.