Sherif el-Qamati is a State Security Police officer who worked at the Bureau of Counter-Communism and Human Rights Organizations, which was in charge of monitoring, arresting and torturing leftists and rights activists.
I first spotted Qamati as early as 2003, when he began showing up for our pro-Palestine and anti-Iraq war protests in downtown Cairo, in the company of the infamous torturer SS Lt. Colonel Waleed el-Dessouqi, both seen below in the picture I took in a pro-intifada protest, 28 September 2003…
Qamati was one the SS officers involved in the crackdown and trial of Revolutionary Socialist activists in 2003-4. He ritualistically attended our protests in downtown Cairo over the following years, monitoring activists with his cold dead eyes which always reminded me of Putin somehow.
During the Cairo Spring, when thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo in solidarity with reformist judges, Qamati was present in the protests and took part in the crackdown. On 25 May 2006, Qamati, with the help of the police force of Qasr el-Nil Station, kidnapped and sodomized left wing blogger Mohamed el-Sharqawi in custody. He was never held accountable despite repeated calls by local and internaitonal rights watchdogs.
Qamati continued to show up for our protests in 2007, but could hardly be noticed in the following years. Other than demonstrations, I also saw him in January 2007 working out in the FDA Gym at Zamalek’s Yamama Center. As of 2008, Qamati held the rank of Major, according to one of his relatives’ obituary published in Al-Ahram.
So where is this rapist today? Whatever happened to him? Is he part of the National Security Bureau, has he been recycled in some other police department, forced to retire, or what? Qamati must face justice and pay for his crimes.
Al-Masry Al-Youm distribution workers gathered for iftar, Garden City, Cairo…
Wael Habib, Textile Workers League activist and Ghazl el-Mahalla labor leader…
Hisham el-Okal, trade unionist from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company, updating the audience on the ongoing strike in Mit Hebeish…
Both photos taken during the Center for Socialist Studies‘ meeting on Self Management and the Egyptian Labor Movement…
The Tanta Flax and Oils Company strikers, staging a sit-in in front of the Ministerial Cabinet HQ, Downtown Cairo, 18 August 2009…
Masks hung outside a souvenir shop, el-Qasr el-’Eini Street, Downtown Cairo…
Egypt’s Justice Experts continue their strike…
Justice experts held prayers yesterday on the outside stair steps of the Ministry of Justice’s downtown Cairo headquarters, in an atmosphere full of grief after receiving the news of the death of their colleague, Ahmad Hassan, an expert from the Assuit office, who died on his way to join the Cairo sit-in.
A delegation of the strikers headed yesterday to Assuit to take part in Hassan’s funeral, while other experts prayed on the ministry’s stair steps in Cairo..
“The ministry’s officials are betting we won’t be able to continue (striking) in Ramadan, but we’re ready to continue until al-Fitr Feast,” said the experts, assuring their will to remain on strike until their demands are fulfilled.
Experts had their first sohour, the last meal eaten before dawn after which fasting starts, using their cell phones as a source of illumination, while some of the striking experts’ children joined their parents’ sohour meal and prayers.
The experts are the Justice Ministry civil servants assigned with technical consultancies during judicial investigations and trials. One of their primary demands is the cancellation of a decision that gives courts the right to send the experts only a portion of each case’s entire file. The experts say their working conditions are much harder. Instead of receiving the whole case file at once, they receive only a few documents from each case file, meaning they are forced to go and collect the rest of the case information from a number of sources. The ensuing waste of time, effort and money, they say, will be immense.
The other demand is a change in job regulations that were established at the time of King Farouk by royal decree number 96 in1952. These regulations set the ground rules for salaries, transportation remuneration and other rules for the experts to work by some 55 years later.
The Tanta Flax and Oils Company strikers, staging a sit-in in front of the Ministerial Cabinet HQ, Downtown Cairo, 18 August 2009…
Tanta Flax and Oils Company strikers demonstrating in front of the Ministerial Cabinet HQ, Downtown Cairo…
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