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A letter to the Egyptian government and to businessmen The island of El Korsaih...The dream of citizen participation in land, wealth and power!
Numerous complaints from the farmers of the island ..... Press reportages for solidarity with the people of El Korsaih .... Campaigns for resistance led by many activists to stop the attempts to evacuate the farmers of the island by force .... This island, which lies in the middle of the Nile between Cairo and Giza governorates, and which is bounded from the north by El Maniel neighborhood, and from the south by El Madi neighborhood ..... They are attempts to seize El Korsaih, and an island between two seas, the mother island, which is estimated at an area of about 500 acres, and which is where the inhabitants have lived for hundreds of years.
In the sixties, the agrarian reform body had codified the state of farmers by way of contracts and by setting a the price for an acre of land at 300 Egyptian pounds, that are payable in installments. The rest of the island’s lands are owned by the state and some businessmen, who were able to purchase several acres of the island’s best lands, and built buildings and companies on them. The governmental procedures, and the practices of businessmen aimed at seizing the lands of farmers, that are happening in the island of El Korsaih are also happening in various regions and villages of Egypt. In Bhot, Menoufia; Dekrnis, Dakahlia; Ashref El Baroudy, Behera; Kafer El Shorfa, Kalyoubia; Hosania, Sharkia; Sods, Beni-Suef; and in dozens of villages of the Egyptian countryside..... the same scenario is happening. Manipulation of papers for the benefit of influential people, trough collusion with some officials, and the forcing farmers and pressuring them to leave the land they have owned and cultivated for hundreds of years.
The Land Center invites the Egyptian government and the decision-makers to review their policy towards producers and people with limited income, in order to let them participate in the wealth revenues and the governing of the country .. They are rights that will not be lost by being ignored ..... They will accumulate day after day to create anger, which threatens social peace and safety in our beloved Egypt.
The LCHR confirms that what is happening in El Korsaih, is being repeated all over Egypt, especially regarding the lands owned by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry Endowment, and the State, in order to enable property claimers and influential people of seizing the lands of the farmers, which they had reclaimed with their own effort over a long time.
The LCHR calls upon all civil society organizations to unite in solidarity with the farmers of El Korsaih and those of the Agrarian Reform, the Ministry of Endowment, and newly reclaimed land, in order to stop the attempts to evacuate them form their land and violate their rights to a safe possession of their agricultural land.
For more information please contact the Center.