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DEMOCRACY

ABB closes Egypt factories over unrest

Swiss Swedish engineering giant ABB said on Tuesday that it had decided to temporarily shut factories in Egypt due to the continued unrest in the country.

Published: 1 February 2011 15:46 CET
ABB closes Egypt factories over unrest

“As a precaution we have closed factories temporarily,” a spokesperson for the

group told the AFP news agency.

ABB employs about 1,600 people in the country, where it has an annual turnover of about $300 million dollars, and builds power generation equipment and industrial robots.

Separately, Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson declared on Monday that it has no evacuation plans for its employees in Egypt, of whom 85 are non-Egyptians.

“Our main focus is the safety of our employees and to be able to support our clients. We follow the situation hourly and see to it that our employees are kept updated,” said Ericsson’s Fredrik Hallstan.

“Our employees can work from home if they so wish. And if they stay at home they are kept regularly informed over the precautions and recommendations that they should follow,” he added.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians rallied on Tuesday for the biggest day of protests yet in their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak.

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PROTESTS

Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

The chairwoman of the Police Association West Region has said that police special tactics, known as Särskild polistaktik or SPT, should be available across Sweden, to use in demonstrations similar to those during the Easter weekend.

Published: 24 April 2022 15:56 CEST
Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

SPT, (Särskild polistaktik), is a tactic where the police work with communication rather than physical measures to reduce the risk of conflicts during events like demonstrations.

Tactics include knowledge about how social movements function and how crowds act, as well as understanding how individuals and groups act in a given situation. Police may attempt to engage in collaboration and trust building, which they are specially trained to do.

Katharina von Sydow, chairwoman of the Police Association West Region, told Swedish Radio P4 West that the concept should exist throughout the country.

“We have nothing to defend ourselves within 10 to 15 metres. We need tools to stop this type of violent riot without doing too much damage,” she said.

SPT is used in the West region, the South region and in Stockholm, which doesn’t cover all the places where the Easter weekend riots took place.

In the wake of the riots, police unions and the police’s chief safety representative had a meeting with the National Police Chief, Anders Tornberg, and demanded an evaluation of the police’s work. Katharina von Sydow now hopes that the tactics will be introduced everywhere.

“This concept must exist throughout the country”, she said.

During the Easter weekend around 200 people were involved in riots after a planned demonstration by anti-Muslim Danish politician Rasmus Paludan and his party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), that included the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Police revealed on Friday that at least 104 officers were injured in counter-demonstrations that they say were hijacked by criminal gangs intent on targeting the police. 

Forty people were arrested and police are continuing to investigate the violent riots for which they admitted they were unprepared. 

Paludan’s application for another demonstration this weekend was rejected by police.

In Norway on Saturday, police used tear gas against several people during a Koran-burning demonstration after hundreds of counter-demonstrators clashed with police in the town of Sandefjord.

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