Prospect solidarity with Egyptian labour leader

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Prospect supports global call to defend Egyptian labour leader's right to freedom of speech.

Kamal Abbas, the General Coordinator of the Egyptian Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS) has been sentenced, in absentia, to six months imprisonment for comments he made at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) last year. This is a gross breach of his freedom of expression, and an attempt to silence one of Egypt's most respected labour rights activists.

A global trade union campaign has begun to persuade the authorities to 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.

Prospects' letter of protest to the UKs Egyptian Ambassador may be downloaded from the following link http://bit.ly/zZY0OY and previous briefing on a meeting with Kamal Abbas http://bit.ly/Ai7pXr

To support the global action calling for the sentence to be dropped please follow the Labour Start link below. http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=1287

Abbas was sentenced by a court in Helwan on 26 February for the supposed crime of 'insulting a public officer'. He interrupted Ismail Fahmy of the old state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) during his speech at the ILO in June 2011, denying his claims to represent the Egyptian working class.