Egypt’s National Security Agency on Saturday released the final two Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation employees detained following a protest demanding five years of unpaid wages.
The two workers were among six employees summoned and questioned after taking part in the protest and march, according to Maha Ahmed, director of the Economic and Social Rights Unit at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), and two female employees who spoke to Al Manassa.
While the releases end the workers’ detention, rights advocates warned that the underlying dispute remains unresolved, with thousands of ministry employees still waiting for wages and benefits despite court rulings in their favor.
Hundreds of employees from agriculture directorates across several governorates had marched last Monday from the ministry’s headquarters in Dokki to the Agricultural Research Center campus on Gamaa Street in Giza, before police stationed around the ministry forced them to end the demonstration.
Afterward, National Security officers summoned six employees who had participated in the rally. Four were released last week, followed by the remaining two on Saturday.
The ECRF legal team in Minya learned that the final two workers, who were held for three days at the Minya Security Directorate, were released on Saturday, Ahmed told Al Manassa.
One employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Al Manassa that security authorities summoned workers from multiple governorates, although most were from Minya. She said some were released after several hours, while others were held for two or three nights in custody.
A second employee told Al Manassa that anxiety spread among staff after their colleagues were detained, although some of those released said the interrogating officers had been sympathetic and expressed surprise that they had not received salaries for so many years.
The ECRF said the workers’ release does not change the fact that they were arrested and detained for exercising their right to peaceful protest. The commission added that the authorities still must explain the legal basis for their actions and that the releases do nothing to resolve the underlying dispute over unpaid wages and benefits affecting thousands of workers.
ECRF also stressed that the releases should not be followed by any form of retaliation or harassment, whether through security measures, administrative penalties, arbitrary transfers, or intimidation because of the workers’ participation in protests or demands for their legal rights.
It called for urgent, serious, and transparent negotiations with representatives of the affected workers to reach a comprehensive settlement of their employment and financial status.
Thousands of contract employees, some of whom have worked for the Ministry of Agriculture for up to 30 years, serve in departments and projects such as school nutrition, seed inspection and certification, agricultural mechanization, and afforestation. Many won court rulings in 2021 and 2022 ordering their formal hiring and the payment of overdue wages and benefits.
Although they were later formally appointed, officials at the agriculture and finance ministries have continued to withhold their salaries, according to workers who previously spoke to Al Manassa.
The workers said the two ministries and the Central Agency for Organization and Administration have each blamed the others for the crisis, without implementing the court rulings or ensuring regular wage payments.
In February, Ihab Mansour, deputy head of the House of Representatives’ Labor Committee and head of the parliamentary bloc of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, called for suspending the salaries of Agriculture Ministry officials responsible for the workers’ suffering.
At the time, he said that he had submitted a formal inquiry to the prime minister, the minister of agriculture and land reclamation, the head of the Central Agency for Organization and Administration, and the finance minister over the failure to pay the affected workers’ wages.
In a previous interview with Al Manassa, Mansour said about 35,000 employees had been affected. They work under contract in various departments and projects affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture. Ministry officials disclosed that figure during a discussion of a formal inquiry he had submitted to parliament’s Agriculture Committee during the prior legislative term, he added.
