Several farmers have decried the seizure of their lands by the state and businessmen, urging Egypt’s presidency to intervene.
Wael Tawfiq, coordinator for peasants' affairs at the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, said a number of farmers from various provinces, including Alexandria, Fayoum, Daqahlia and Kafr al-Sheikh are decrying infringements by some state institutions on their farmlands.
He added that encroachers are denying peasants titles to their lands, which they won as part of agricultural reform laws introduced after the 1952 Revolution. He explained that the peasants had obtained the disputed lands as a reward for their sons’ participation in the war in Yemen back in the 1960s.
Tawfiq, speaking during a party conference on Sunday, said past Administrative Court verdicts had ruled that businessmen's ownerships of lands in some governorates were rigged.
Tawfiq voiced his party’s solidarity with the farmers’ demands.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm