Dressed in big coats of sandy, white or clear blue colours, the weaving loom workers fill the small union office – all men; it is a male trade here. We are in Etehad Town in the outskirts of Karachi, capital of Sindh, principal industrial and port metropolis of Pakistan. Several of those present had just been freed under bail. Their crime, like that of their comrades then still imprisoned, was wishing to set up a union in enterprises which live under a veritable regime of employer terror: the Etehad Power Looms Labour Union, affiliated with National Trade Union Federation. For this, they were arrested by paramilitary Rangers, tortured, imprisoned, accused of racketeering and brought before an anti-terrorist court.

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<a href="http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?rubrique195" rel="directory">IV449 - June 2012</a>

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<a href="http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?mot51" rel="tag">Pakistan</a>