Workers arrested in state crackdown on Delta fertiliser workers

Protesting workers at a branch of the state-owned Delta Company for Fertilisers and Chemical Industries have been subject to a severe crackdown from the authorities.
In early January 2021, workers at Delta Company’s Daqahlia branch entered the second month of a continuous sit-in to oppose the closure and relocation of their workplace to Suez.
In late December 2020, 13 workers were arrested from their homes by security forces. Five of those arrested, including Mahmoud Sabry, a member elected by workers as their representative on the company’s board of directors, were released on the Sunday.
On 3 January 2021, the eight remaining workers were brought before the State Security Prosecution in Cairo and issued with 15-day remand detention orders. The charges the workers face remain unknown.
These arrests have signaled a refusal to bargain with the workers at Delta Company by the Public Enterprise Ministry and holding company, which has also refused the mediation efforts of a prominent official in the National Security Agency.