Michaela Singer reports:
Over a hundred farmers gathered outside the Samanoud Cooperative Building for Land Reform to express their anger over a five-year delay in receiving their land deeds.
Farmers of Samanoud, located in the Ashmoun suburbs of Menoufiya governorate, held a demonstration when, after five years of waiting for deeds to be issued, they were informed that a local lawyer, Ali Fahmy Sharaf, had attained a court ruling ordering farmers off their land.
Sharaf, according to farmers’ reports, has been working to deprive farmers of their land since 2003 when he wrote a false preliminary contract between himself and descendants of former land owner Youssef Mansour.
The contract, according to both farmers and representatives from the Organization for Solidarity with Egyptian Farmers, has no legal basis. However, as it was effectively verified in a court of law, farmers fear their land will be taken from them.