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Your Excellencies, Minister of Agriculture and the Prosecutor General Who will protect the rights of agrarian land tenants in Egypt?
There is a piece of agrarian land in Ezbet Motawe'a – Tameya station – Ek Fayoum governorate with an area of 148 acres (faddans), 50 of them are farmed with wheat, 50 are farmed with beet, 25 are farmed with clover and 23 faddans are farmed with tomatoes. This piece of land also includes a farm for domestic animals and poultry owned to the farmers who live in more than 100 homes along with their families.
In 20/12/2005 at 05:00 am, these farmers were surprised with some of the conflicting people on the ownership of this land along with 20 armed men with machine guns, knives and canes attacking them and forcing them to get out of the land, they have shot some of the cattle in the farms and took the rest, in addition to rending crops and ruining the land in order to change the land features and borders (landmarks(.
It is worth mentioning that this conflicted upon land was owned by Mr. Adel Motawe'a since 1995, he sold it to other people named "Khaled, Haleem and Wedad", who have then sold the land to other people named "Yousef, Omar and Ashraf sons of Ismael Yousef", then several conflicts have happened on the ownership of the rest of this land. Farmers say that this alnd is owned to agrarian reform. Therefore, these conflicts are among ownership claimers.
LCHR Lawyers have filed lawsuit no. 30 vital statistics in 20/12/2005 to stop the eviction of thee farmers and the violations practiced against them till the date of settlement (court decision) over the ownership of this land, in addition to compensating them for their losses resulting from the thugs assaults. Tameya prosecution has issued a decision for investigation and leaving the status as it is.
The LCHR sends the complaints of these farmers to the minister of agriculture, the minister of the interior and the prosecutor general demanding them to protect the lives of these farmers, their families and crops, as a guarantee to their rights in life and safe land possession.
The LCHR also demands all CSOs to unite in solidarity with El Fayoum farmers to guarantee their rights in social safety and decent living.