“We (the teachers) have become proletariat el-ta’aleem (the education proletariat),” said N Sinai teacher and left wing activist Ashraf Ayoub in the meeting that followed Saturday’s protest. “Are we different from the workers? No. The government treats us in the same way. We are exploited and oppressed… We need to mobilize for a national conference [...]

Kamal Abu Eita, addressing other members of the Higher Committee for the Real Estate Tax Collectors’ Strike who convened in Cairo on Saturday, to carry on their fight to build what will be Egypt’s first independent labor union in half a century…

“We need to know one another, and who’s doing what in each province.” said Na’eem Ramadan, an Arabic teacher from Dessouq, in the northern Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheik. “We can’t stay fragmented… We have to strike. The people (teachers) have reached their limits and cannot take it anymore. Before Kefaya, no one used [...]

Sarah Carr has a detailed report in the Daily News Egypt on the Saturday afternoon teachers’ protest in Downtown Cairo…

From the Daily News Egypt…
Thirty-two factory workers have been arbitrarily dismissed from their jobs after protesting both the dismissal of a colleague and the failure of their employers to provide pay raises to which they are entitled.
Safaa Qandeel, an employee at El-Hennawy Tobacco factory, Damanhour, was dismissed following allegations that she ripped up her employment [...]

Kareem el-Beheiri reports…

Photo of me, in Kuwait, 1980, supervising the work of the 30th of Febwuawy Tewwow Bwigades…

Some pix from the family album…

My parents, Nasr City, 1976…

My mother, Paris, 1981…

My mother, Nasr City, December 2007…

North Sinai school teacher Ashraf Hefni, denouncing Hosni and Gamal Mubarak, during a protest by the teachers in downtown Cairo…

Around 30 teachers from different provinces protested Saturday afternoon in Hussein Hegazi St, in front of the ministerial cabinet building, against the Education Ministry’s assessment exam. The teachers also denounced their state-backed union, calling for the establishment of a “free syndicate.”

I’ll post more pix and details about the teachers’ fight later…