Residents of Qale’t el-Kabsh slum are heading tomorrow Thursday 10am to the Egyptian Center for Housing Rights in downtown Cairo, and will then move to the Public Prosecutor’s office in Ramses St, to file a lawsuit against the government demanding their immediate compensation and stopping the police assaults.
Today, Qale’t el-Kabsh slum residents took to the streets again in downtown Cairo, demonstrating in front of the parliament in el-Qasr el-Eini Street.
I was in downtown around noon, when I received unconfirmed news that new clashes broke out between the slum residents who still haven’t been compensated by the government for their burnt down houses. The unconfirmed news also included the killing of a woman by the police. I was also told the slum dwellers were going to carry the woman’s body and demonstrate in Tahrir Sq.
I waited for roughly half an hour in the square, without witnessing anything, but then I assumed may be the protesters decided to try demonstrating in front of the parliament like last time. I started running to el-Qasr el-Eini St, and indeed the traffic had come to halt as a group of slum residents managed to assemble in front of the parliament.
The police was PANICKING, and tried to disperse the reporters and the curious citizens who approached the crowd. But then they left the reporters alone.
It turned out no one was killed. A woman had been severely injured by the police while protesting earlier in the day in front of the Red Crescent relief building, where the local municipality should be receiving the requests for the compensations and the alternative housing schemes. Frustrated by sleeping in the open air day after day since she lost her house, the woman started shouting, so she was attacked by the police, who beat her up. Blood covered her dress. After going into a coma, the residents thought she died, so they vented their anger at the police and government, and marched with her body in El-Qasr el-Eini St, till they assembled in front of the parliament.
The residents accused the local municipality of corruption. “Only those who pay LE5000 as a bribe receives the government-provided alternative housing,” said one of the demonstrators. The same figure was repeated to me several times by other demonstrators.
There were State Security and Qasr el-Nil Police Station officers present. They were taking down the names of the women present in the demo, claiming they will look into their cases and make sure they were prioritized. Some of the women volunteered their names, but others refused saying the police wants to find out their names only to take their men as hostages, like they did before.
I’ll upload more video clips later.
Here’s a video of the clashes that happened between the police and the residents of Qale’t Kabsh slum, who were demonstrating in Tahrir Square last week demanding compensation from the government after their houses were burnt down.
The government did find an alternative housing for only 100 families last Monday, resettling them in El-Nahda neighborhood, Madinet el-Salam. On the same day, Central Security Forces raided the slum again, and rounded up roughly 70 men, and took them in two prison trucks, throwing one group in the desert on the Cairo-Suez road and another near Tora, south of Cairo. They were warned if they demonstrate again, “they’ll be taken behind the sun,” according to a leftist activist who is in touch with the slum community leaders.