CAIRO: Protesting Telecom Egypt (TE) employees again denied Thursday reports that they intend to cut off internet services, as the government renewed confidence in the management of the state-owned company. “On behalf of the Egyptian people, we accuse the former regime of committing crimes against humanity, particularly the cutting off of all telecommunications and internet services,” said Mohamed Abu Quraish, the president of the TE Workers' Independent Syndicate, the employees' primary representative. He was referring to the shutdown of internet services for six days and mobile networks for two days late January earlier this year, in a bid by the former regime to quell pro-democracy protests. “How can we, the honourable citizens that have maintained our position … commit such an act? No TE Worker has ever, or will ever, do such a thing,” he added. A report published by independent Arabic daily Al-Masry Al-Youm claimed that the syndicate has approved the decision to cut-off internet services, quoting Abu Quraish. Abu Quraish, however, told Daily News that the report was completely false, and that he had filed an official complaint (#10514 Oct. 9, 2011) to the Prosecutor General against the newspaper for misquoting him. “I accuse remnants of the fallen regime in the various corrupt economic and administrative sectors of falsely accusing and threatening us, in collaboration with the bogus media, to distort and deform the image of the valid and legitimate protests,” said Abu Quraish. The story was corrected in the second edition of the newspaper's Thursday issue. “How can a group that has stood by the people during the revolution cut off services after having proven their loyalty to the people?” said Ahmed Fekri, a member of the TE protestors' coalition. “Our company's image is already tainted, and we will not taint it further. We are keener on the firm's reputation than the board,” he added. The workers' three – and only – demands were: the sacking of the current administration of TE (including CEO Mohamed Abdel Rahim), the immediate investigation of alleged corruption within the company, and the release of five protestors arrested last Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology renewed confidence Thursday in TE's executive management. According to an official statement, the minister “stressed his trust in them and their ability to achieve company targets,” while issuing directives to TE management to consider any “legitimate demands” by the employees. Akil Bashir, TE Chairman, had previously described the coalition's demands as “sector-specific,” quoted by media as saying that employees' salaries range from a minimum of LE 1,800 to LE 4,000 – reportedly describing this as higher than any other company in the telecom business. Members of the TE Workers' Coalition painted a different picture. According to Hager Aboul Fadl, one of the protesters, starting salaries for telecom engineers were at most LE 1,200. Meanwhile, employees with a university degree receive a starting salary of LE 950, and lower-tier workers such as technicians receive considerably less, LE 600 at most, she added. “Our demands, however, are not about salaries. We do not want financial restructuring, rather we demand an organizational restructuring,” said Fekri. “We aim to overthrow a ‘regime', not a group of individuals.” Protestors had organized another demonstration Thursday at the TE building in Smart Village to pressure CEO Abdel Rahim to respond to their demands. The protestors intend to organize such demonstrations daily, pending any further escalations. They maintained that their protests are peaceful in nature, stressing that they will not affect any services provided by TE, particularly internet services.
