Egypt: ITUC Demands Mubarak Stop Violence

The ITUC is demanding that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to immediately stop the dramatically escalating violence being organised by his regime against peaceful demonstrators, including children, who are continuing to demand fundamental democratic change.

With UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemning the violence and calling for a peaceful transition and offering UN support to this end, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said “the Egyptian President and Government must listen to the legitimate demands of the massive number of peaceful demonstrators. These people represent the wide spectrum of Egyptian society, including the independent trade unions, and the repression against them is totally unacceptable. The authorities must put in place the measures necessary to ensure a peaceful transition to genuine democracy without any further delay.”

The ITUC condemns the instruction given by the regime to employees of the government and state enterprises to join the violence against those seeking change, as well as the dismissal of employees who have joined the peaceful protest movement.

The ITUC is calling on its affiliates worldwide to intervene with their governments to press the Egyptian regime to put an end to the grave violations of the rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. It further insists that those responsible for the violence must not go unpunished.