Mahalla—protest letter

In response to a call for a strike on April 6th by the workers in the Mahallah textile complex, the biggest factory in Egypt, the Mubarak regime decided to occupy El-Mahalla complex with security forces, abduct strike committee leaders Kamal El-Faioumy and Tarek Amin and arrest political activists of every political tendency in Cairo and other cities.

Not able to suppress the protests, the Mubarak security forces used rubber-bullets, tear-gas, and live ammunition against the Mahallah people who decided to protest on the streets of the city and in different villages, leaving at least two dead and hundreds injured and around 800 arrested. We send our solidarity to the Egyptian workers and their supporters.

We call on the Egyptian dictatorship to release the 800 detained yesterday including more than 150 political activists (socialists, liberals, and Islamists), more than 600 protestors from Mahallah (mainly women and children) and Mahallah strike Committee leaders.

Jeremy Corbyn, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
Bob Crow, general secretary RMT Union (UK rail workers)
Mark Serwotka, general secretary PCS Union (UK civil service workers)
Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition
Francisco Louçã, Member of Parliament, Portugal
John Rees, Cairo Conference
Clare Solomon, President, SOAS Student Union
China Miéville writer, Britain
Mike Davis writer and academic, USA
Prof. Esther Leslie (Britain)
Michael Löwy (sociologist, France)
Prof. Moshe Machover (Britain)
Prof. Jacques Bidet (France)
Prof. Claudio Katz (Argentina)
Prof. Jonathan Nitzan (Canada)
Prof. Craig Brandist (Britain)
Prof. Colin Sparks (Britain)
Prof. Alex Callinicos (Britain)
Jim Wolfreys, President, King’s College London UCU (university and college lecturers)

To add your name go to: www.stopwar.org.uk