The area in front of the parliament building in downtown Cairo witnessed five demonstrations on Monday. Protesters included disgruntled employees of a textiles company and an agricultural automation firm, handicapped citizens demanding social rights, and families from Alexandria whose homes have been slated for demolition by authorities. The four initial demonstrations were eventually joined by a fifth, staged by employees of the Real Estate Tax Authority (RETA). After a two-year respite, tax authority personnel have again begun staging demonstrations to protest the RETA administration's failure to pay out promised bonuses. The area was cordoned off by police in order to prevent protesters from affecting traffic outside the parliament building. Roughly 100 employees of the Amonsito textiles company decried the delay in salary and bonus payments for the last three years. They complain that the company's owner had fled abroad without paying back bank loans and that Banque Misr had sequestered the company as a result of its unpaid debts. Workers from the Nubariya agricultural automation company, meanwhile, claim they have not received their rightful salaries since 2008. They say that a private investor purchased two thirds of the company's shares before sacking a large number of employees without paying them their salaries. At the same time, some 60 physically-disabled demonstrators continued their protest for the third consecutive day, accusing the Cairo Governorate of ignoring their demands. Demonstrators, who threatened to wage a hunger strike until their demands were met, are asking for fair allocations of both public housing and jobs. Five percent of public-sector jobs are currently allocated for the handicapped. Finally, ten families from the el-Nabi Daniel area of Alexandria also came to protest outside parliament. They complain that the owner of the building in which they live is planning to evacuate and demolish it in order to profit from the land on which it is situated. They say the building was built in 2006 and does not suffer from any serious structural deficiencies that warrant its demolition. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
