Women in Lebanese trade union struggle

"Historian of the trade union movement in Lebanon, Jacques Couland, mentions her in the course of telling the story of the “workers” bloody strike at the “Regie [tobacco] Company” in 1946.  The company management had decided to lay off 24 workers and requested the support of a police force to break up a protest that had lasted for two weeks and reached its peak on June 27.  At noon that day, female workers threw themselves on the ground, putting their bodies in front of a truck that had entered company premises in the Furn el-Shubak neighborhood of Beirut.  At this point, orders were given to fire. As a result, Ibrahim was martyred, 29 of her colleagues were injured, and the truck was able to get through.  In the details recounted by unionist and professor Mary al-Dibs, “some workers that day backed down [and] Warda yelled at them to return to their positions and stay put. Suddenly, a policeman stepped forward, drew his gun at Warda’s chest, and fired.”  And so Ibrahim fell as the first known martyr of the working class at the hands of a Lebanese policeman.  But her martyrdom did not go in vain. Following her death, workers were able to force the passage of a labor law." (thanks Shawna)