Hundreds of farmers and rural workers gathered outside of the cabinet building in downtown Cairo on Monday afternoon to protest against the confiscation of their land by the state earlier this month. Three weeks ago, the governor of Monofeya and the mayor of Madinat al-Sadat ordered thugs to forcibly evict farmers and residents from their land, separeting them from livelihood. The thugs carried out their instructions with brute force and violence, a common occurrence in rural Egypt over the past 20 years. The 40,000-feddan farming area located just off the Alex-Cairo Desert Road is home to more than 3,000 families who had been living, farming and investing in the land since 2005. At the protests, some of the farmers jumped in front of cars on Qasr al-Aini in a desperate attempt to get people's attention. “One day several microbuses with thugs inside drove up to our houses, showed us their papers and demanded that we pack up and leave,” said Reda Mohamed Nassef, a local farmer from the area. “They said that they were taking the land to use it for business purposes, even though we've been living there for over five years and own the land as a result of the Wadaa al-Yad law. When we tried to reason them, they attacked us and demanded that we leave immediately.” According to the Wadaa al-Yad (meaning lay your hands) law, unclaimed land can be occupied and developed by Egyptian citizens – with ownership passing to whoever has worked the land over a period of time. “We have been working on this land for five years, and it was just starting to develop when it was stolen from us,” said Nassef. “My family sold all the jewelry and we used our life savings to invest in this land. Now we have nothing left and nowhere to go. We are desperate.” The farmers initially began to protest in small groups last week outside the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in Dokki. However, Minister Ayman Farid Abu-Hadid announced that while he acknowledged that they had legitimate complaints, he was unable to do anything without presidential consent. Because of the current political state, the farmers decided that they must take the complaint to Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's office at the cabinet building. “People say that the revolution has changed things, but nothing has changed,” declared Farid al-Sharbatty, another farmer who was displaced. “The game is still on, there's still the invisible hand ruling everything, corruption is everywhere and the ministers are useless,” he added. The protest was organized by a group of farmers who are all now trying to support each other by whatever means possible with housing, money and food. When asked about getting help from the Farmer's Syndicate, which was announced last month, none of the farmers seemed to even be aware of its existence or how it could help. “Even if there was a syndicate, how are they going to help us with this now?” asked Sharbatty. “What you are talking about is a citizen initiative. They hardly have anything to do with us and they don't even talk to us – it's almost for show. We are desperate right now and no one can do anything but Sharaf.” Hesham Fouad, a member of the Sons of the Soil, a long-time initiative for farmers and land reclamation, commented on the incident: “They are doing the right thing by taking this to the streets and to Essam Sharaf, because there is obviously corruption behind these decisions and he is the only one who can do anything about it immediately.”
