It's getting hard to keep up:
Security officers on Wednesday closed the headquarters of the CTUWS, which offers legal aid to Egyptian factory workers, educates them as to their rights, and reports on labor-rights issues in the country. Police had closed two of the group's branch offices in recent weeks. The Ministry of Social Solidarity has blamed the CTUWS for inciting labor unrest around the country...
Plainclothes security officers had surrounded the CTUWS headquarters since April 23, 2007, when representatives of other Egyptian civil society groups had begun a sit-in there to express solidarity with the organization. According to human rights lawyer Gamal Eid, who was at the headquarters when the police shut down the offices, more than 200 policemen surrounded the CTUWS headquarters in the industrial Cairo suburb of Helwan on April 25, saying they had an order from the Ministry of Social Solidarity to close the organization. A representative of the Helwan local council cut power to the office...
The government's campaign against the organization comes amid widespread and continuing labor unrest in Egypt. According to media reports, there were more than 200 labor protests in Egypt during 2006. The largest was a public-sector textile workers' strike at a factory in al-Mahalla al-Kubra in December 2006. That strike came after the al-Mahalla office of the CTUWS helped inform textile workers of a prime ministerial decree that all public-sector textile workers should get higher year-end bonuses. Factory managers initially denied the decree had been issued. More than 20,000 workers eventually went on strike until the government offered them an increased bonus.
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