Charges Dropped Against Egyptian Trade Union Leader
An Egyptian court late last month closed the case of workers’ rights advocate Kamal Abbas, who was sentenced in absentia to six months imprisonment earlier this year on charges he insulted a state executive.
Abbas, general coordinator of Egypt’s Center of Trade Unions and Services (CTUWS), was accused of insulting acting Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) President Ismail Ibrahim Fahmy while Fahmy was speaking at a June 2011 International Labor Organization (ILO) event.
The global labor and human rights communities protested Abbas’s sentence, and the CTUWS expressed its “thanks and deep gratitude” for international solidarity and support.