Egypt: Death toll put at 365 as strikes continue

CAIRO
– At least 365 people died in the 18 days of anti-government protests
that pushed out longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, the Health
Ministry said Wednesday in the first official accounting of the death
toll.
Minister Ahmed Sameh Farid said it was
only a preliminary count of civilians killed and did not include police
or prisoners. And while Mubarak is gone, frustration with the quality
of life — from working conditions to environmental concerns — has kept
demonstrators in the streets as the economy continues to falter.
Airport
employees protested for better pay Wednesday, textile workers went on
strike to demand a corruption probe and residents of a Suez Canal city
pressed for the closing of a chemical factory they say is dumping toxic
waste into a lake.
The ruling military council
issued its second statement in three days calling for an immediate halt
to all labor actions. The new warning raised expectations of an
outright ban on protests and strikes that could easily raise the
tension between authorities and the protest movement.
"We
urge citizens and members of professional and labor unions to go on
with their jobs, each in their position," a text message sent to
Egyptian cell phones from the military said.
So
far, the warnings have been defied by people airing grievances
everywhere over just about everything, from meager wages to police
brutality and corruption.
One of the youth
groups that helped organize the uprising tweeted Wednesday: "Strikes
and protests should NOT stop." The group also promoted a planned march
this Friday to Cairo's [color:2b2d=#366388 ! important][color:2b2d=#366388 ! important]Tahrir [color:2b2d=#366388 ! important]Square, the democracy movement's key gathering point.
The
council that took power from Mubarak, the result of the protests that
began Jan. 25, says all the strikes and unrest are hampering efforts to
salvage the economy and return the nation to normal life. [color:2b2d=#366388 ! important][color:2b2d=#366388 ! important]Egypt's [color:2b2d=#366388 ! important]economy
has been in virtual paralysis with the labor unrest, extended bank and
stock market closures and an evaporation of tourism — a key source of
income for the country.
Banks
were closed Wednesday and will be again Thursday, the last day of the
business week in Egypt. There was no word on whether they would reopen
Sunday, the start of the business week.
The
stock market has been closed for the past three weeks and, again, and
it's uncertain when it will resume operating. The market lost nearly 17
percent of its value in two tumultuous sessions in late January before
it was ordered shut to halt the slide.
While the economy sags, a wide array of groups are making it known they want change now.
Hundreds
of airport employees protested inside the arrivals terminal at Cairo
International Airport to press demands for better wages and health
coverage. The protest did not disrupt flights.
In
the industrial Nile Delta city of Mahallah al-Koubra, workers from
Egypt's largest textile factory went on strike over pay and calls for
an investigation into alleged corruption at the factory, according to
labor rights activist Mustafa Bassiouni.
More than 60 women's and community groups condemned the new panel formed by the Armed Forces Supreme Council to amend [color:2b2d=#366388 ! important][color:2b2d=#366388 ! important]Egypt's [color:2b2d=#366388 ! important]constitution, saying it is an all-male group which "excludes half of society."
"This
casts doubt on the future of democratic transformation in Egypt after
the revolution, and raises questions about ... whether the revolution
was seeking to free the whole society or only certain segments," the
statement said.
In Port Said, a coastal city at
the northern tip of the Suez Canal, about 1,000 people demonstrated to
demand that a chemical factory be closed because it was dumping waste
in a lake near the city.
In the wake of
protests Monday and Wednesday outside the office of the U.N. refugee
agency, UNHCR, a spokeswoman for the group said it has started giving
each refugee a small, one-time payment to help with their immediate
needs.
The refugees demonstrating at the UNHCR
office on the outskirts of Cairo complained they have been stuck in
Egypt for several years, sometimes as long as a decade. Wilkes said
there are some 40,000 registered refugees in the country, many from
East Africa.
The European Union said Wednesday that its foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton would visit Egypt next week after the Egyptian Foreign
Ministry asked the international community for aid. Ashton, already in
the region, would be the most senior foreign official to come to Cairo
since Mubarak's Feb. 11 ouster. Details of her visit and who she would
meet while in Cairo were yet to be announced.
There was one crumb of good news for Egyptian authorities.
The country's chief archaeologist announced the recovery of
three of 18 pieces reported missing from the famed Egyptian Museum
during the anti-Mubarak uprising.
"God almighty saved the antiquities from this hell because God loves Egypt," Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass said.

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