6-month sentence for Kamal Abbas an ominous warning to Egyptian workers waiting for their spring

Following legislation last year which criminalizes workplace protests, the struggle for  independent trade unions in Egypt received another blow when on February 26 Kamal Abbas, general coordinator of the Center for Trade Union and Worker's Services (CTUWS) was sentenced in absentia to six months imprisonment for "insulting a public officer" during the 2011 International Labour Conference in Geneva.

For two decades, the CTUWS waged a courageous fight against the Mubarak regime to defend worker rights and independent trade unions. The sentence, delivered by a misdemeanor court in the city of Helwan, is based on a  une 9, 2011 incident at the International Labour Conference in Geneva, which Abbas was attending as a guest of the ITUC. Abbas interrupted Ismael Fahmy, representing the now discredited and disbanded state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation, when he claimed in his speech that the ETUF represented Egyptian workers.

Unions internationally are demanding that the sentence be thrown out. You can support the call for Egyptian authorities to immediately withdraw all charges, annul the sentence and to refrain from any further harassment against trade unionists or other civil society representatives for the exercise of their legitimate activities.

Click here to send a message through the labourstart campaign suppport page.