Residents forcibly disappeared after protest against government demolitions

Five residents of a Giza neighborhood have been forcibly disappeared after they were arrested during a Friday demonstration against expropriation and home demolitions in the area for which residents fear they won’t receive proper compensation.

On Friday, around 30 residents gathered on Tersa Street in Talbiya to protest a Cabinet decision that slated a number of properties for demolition in order to widen the street, resident Ahmed Imam told Mada Masr.

Five residents were initially arrested from the Friday demonstration, said Imam, while the administrator of a Facebook page campaigning against the expropriations was arrested from his home on Saturday.

Though the five were taken at first to Talbiya Station, Imam said that since Saturday, police personnel at the station have denied knowledge of their whereabouts and said only that they have been “moved.”

Imam told Mada Masr that residents were reassured in the past — during an earlier round of development that included 124 removal decisions — that their properties were not included.

Yet, in December, “one of the Talbiya district officials visited our property, surveying the number of residents, floors and apartments,” Imam said By February, a prime ministerial decision was issued to demolish 38 additional properties to make way for a second phase of expansion work on Tersa Street. 

Tersa Street is to be used as a bypass while construction work on Metro Line 4 is ongoing on Haram Street, a main artery connecting the Alexandria Desert Road to 6th of October City, the pyramids and onward to central Cairo. Imam says the plan is to demolish dozens of properties to widen Tersa Street by just five meters, leading Imam and other residents to call the demolitions a waste of public money.

According to Imam, Talbiya district officials, Giza City Council, and Giza Governorate all say that suspending the decision is not an option, since it was issued by Cabinet in February. Since then, the head of the Talbiya district, Ashraf Tamer, has periodically paid visits to residents in the buildings scheduled for demolition to try to persuade them to sign eviction notices, which most residents refused to do without compensation, Imam said.

Officials have reportedly adopted an aggressive tone with residents, pressuring them into signing the forms, according to Imam, and both the head of Giza City, Major General Tamer Aboul Naga, and the head of the Talbiya district have threatened residents that they would not receive compensation if they did not sign an eviction notice.

Imam also said that residents were in the dark about how much compensation they would ultimately receive. Though a legal provision stipulates for an initial valuation to be attached to the expropriation report, Imam said that the February Cabinet decision stated only that “an advisory report on the necessary compensation is being prepared by the Egyptian General Authority for Survey and Preservation.”

The authority is set to offer Tersa residents compensation in full, Imam said, but only after the demolitions are completed. Residents are also to be provided with a share of land, though officials said that residents are to manage their affairs with preliminary compensation until then, according to Imam.

Thus far, compensation has been set at LE40,000 for each room, excluding the kitchen and the bathroom, a valuation Imam noted would mean a four bedroom apartment would be compensated at LE200,000 when he believes LE1 million is a more appropriate price. 

According to Imam, Tersa Street residents were also offered relocation to cheaper units in 6th of October City, far from their current neighborhood. 

According to Imam, the residents of three properties were pressured into signing the eviction notice nearly a week ago and the properties were demolished within two days, before they received compensation money.

Fearing imminent eviction without sufficient compensation, the remaining residents organized the protest on Friday.

The Talbiya residents are not alone in being subjected to surprise eviction proceedings. In recent years, national development and construction works across Giza, Cairo and beyond have seen homeowners ordered to move at short notice, and families have been forced to find new internment sites for their relatives as burial grounds have been uprooted.