The pop­u­lar move­ment against a Cana­di­an petro­chem­i­cal plant has forced the Egypt­ian gov­ern­ment to shut down the Agri­um-Mop­co gas-fer­tilis­er fac­to­ry, after res­i­dents shut down high­ways, bridges and a deep­wa­ter port, and bat­tled the Egypt­ian mil­i­tary in the street.

Grainy pho­tos and video-clips  tweet­ed out – espe­cial­ly by Al-Jazeera’s @Mansourtalk – show locals stand­ing up to mil­i­tary forces using live ammu­ni­tion and tear gas. After 25 were arrest­ed, fel­low pro­tes­tors besieged an army unit and APC until their friends were released. At least one local – Islam Abdul­lah – was killed by police or mil­i­tary and many oth­ers injured.

Twit­ter: Pro­tes­tors besiege APC demand­ing release of their com­rades @mansourtalk

Fol­low­ing the repres­sion by the Egypt­ian state, the Dami­et­ta upris­ing has esca­lat­ed its demands, call­ing for clo­sure of oth­er pol­lut­ing fac­to­ries in Dami­et­ta (includ­ing Methanex and SEGAS LNG – financed by RBS), and ban­ning the con­struc­tion of sim­i­lar fac­to­ries and com­plex­es.

Repres­sion threat­ens the upris­ing in Dami­et­ta @mansourtalk

The pop­u­lar cam­paign against Agrium’s plant – using local gas to pro­duce urea fer­tilis­er – already scored a vic­to­ry in 2008, forc­ing the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny Agrium’s plans for a new petro­chem­i­cal fac­to­ry to merge with Egypt­ian Mop­co. Peo­ple in Dami­et­ta – and espe­cial­ly the Ras El-Barr island des­ig­nat­ed as the site – were wor­ried about pol­lu­tion destroy­ing their health, the fish, the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and poten­tial for tourism. Fer­tilis­er-pro­duc­ing plants are known to make local com­mu­ni­ties sick, with Agri­um specif­i­cal­ly fac­ing con­tro­ver­sy in sev­er­al coun­tries. Oppo­si­tion to the new fac­to­ry was strong across the town – includ­ing lawyers, fish­er­folk, polit­i­cal activists, fam­i­lies and tourism devel­op­ers. Black ban­ners against the ‘fac­to­ry of death’ were draped from homes and across streets: “Against Resource Drain and Pol­lu­tion in Damietta…and No to Pol­lu­tion in Ra’s al-Barr.”

Pub­lic unhap­pi­ness with the pol­lu­tion from the exist­ing fac­to­ry and con­tin­u­ing con­struc­tion grew since Jan­u­ary, using the polit­i­cal space gen­er­at­ed by the rev­o­lu­tion. News­pa­per Al-Mas­ry Al-Youm quotes a state­ment from the pro­tes­tors:

“They told us Agri­um fac­to­ry was moved out of Dami­et­ta. In 2011, after the rev­o­lu­tion, we found out that we were deceived and that the fac­to­ry wasn’t moved. The com­mit­tee formed to mull the region’s envi­ron­men­tal sta­tus proved that this fac­to­ry had caused peo­ple many dis­eases and dan­ger­ous­ly affect­ed man, ani­mal, plant and fish resources.”

The paper also quot­ed a local res­i­dent, Mohamed Has­souna, as say­ing

“We are chok­ing from the tox­ic fumes com­ing out of the garbage dumped close to res­i­den­tial areas. The fumes are caus­ing seri­ous res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems among the elder­ly and the ill.”

The upris­ing – in which the local com­mu­ni­ty suc­cess­ful­ly shut down Damietta’s mas­sive deep­wa­ter port and block­ad­ed the high­ways and bridges for days – has touched a nerve in Egypt. There is already wide­spread unhap­pi­ness about the col­lu­sion between for­eign multi­na­tion­als, mil­i­tary-con­trolled com­pa­nies and pri­vate Egypt­ian elite inter­ests in using Egypt­ian resources  (land, nat­ur­al gas, etc) – fre­quent­ly sub­sidised – to make out­ra­geous prof­its. The role of the mil­i­tary in attack­ing the Dami­et­ta com­mu­ni­ty phys­i­cal­ly enacts this co-oper­a­tion against the peo­ple.

Pol­lu­tion and dump­ing of waste in Egypt  – such as in Idku by BG and BP – is increas­ing­ly being pub­licly chal­lenged as a polit­i­cal deci­sion, that pri­ori­tis­es prof­its for those in charge over the lives and rights over fence­line com­mu­ni­ties. The lan­guage of the rev­o­lu­tion is being used to describe envi­ron­men­tal injus­tice.