"Ongoing Violations Against Residents Of Hod al-Musallas In Muntazah", 02 November 2014

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights is deeply concerned about an imminent social catastrophe that could displace some 5,000 families out of their homes in rural Muntazah, located in the Alexandria governorate, following action taken by the Endowment Authority to expel them from agricultural land in their possession and convert the land into real estate investment projects. The Endowment Authority on Monday, October 13, 2014, printed an appeal to the president in al-Gomhouriya, claiming that “influential people” to seized land the authority allegedly possesses and urging the Alexandria governorate to clear 300 feddans on which more than 5,000 families live and work. The authority is falsely claiming that it owns the land on which the families’ homes are erected. According to title documents submitted by the farmers to the EIPR, the land is in the legal possession of the farmers, and neither the Endowment Authority nor the governorate has any legal claim to it. As such, the demolition orders, which are on the verge of execution, are tantamount to an illegal eviction order that will leave the legal occupants of the land homeless and deny them their livelihood, based in the agricultural land on which they work...