(Photo by: Hassan Ibrahim)
Egyptian workers held 2,486 protests in 2013, 2,243 of which took place during the reign of ousted former President Mohamed Morsi. A total of 243 protests were held under the military-backed interim government.
An average of 6.1 worker protests took place each day during the year. This was down from the total in 2012 when the number of demonstrations reached 3,300. The overall number of protests in 2013 topped that of 2011 when 1,300 protests took place.
January, February and March saw 278, 424 and 396 protests, respectively.
April registered the highest number of demonstrations for the year with 448.
During Morsi’s last month in office 288 protests took place. That total dropped sharply to 46 immediately after his removal from power.
The number of protests rose slightly in August to 55, but declined in September to only 45.
A sharp decline was witnessed in October, with only 25 protests held.
November registered the highest number of protests after Morsi’s ousting with 61 taking place during the month. Only 11 protests were recorded in December.
Workers held 912 demonstrations and marches in their protests, 36.6% of those recorded in 2013.
Strikes were the second most common with 558 strikes, or 22.4% of the total.
Workers held 373 sit-ins, accounting for 14.9% of the year’s protests, while 85 cases of hunger strikes were recorded in 2013.
There was a total of 10 protest-related suicide attempts during the year, only one of which was successful. A worker in the customs department of Port Said killed himself while demonstrating for increasing wages.
*Figures were provided by the Egyptian Center for Social and Economic Rights (ECESR)
