Human Rights Watch is deeply disturbed by credible reports that since
the early hours of March 4, 2005, Egyptian security forces have laid
siege to the village of Sarando in the Baharriya Governorate and the
surrounding lands. Villagers report that security forces have
terrorized inhabitants with ongoing night-time raids, arbitrary arrests
including holding women and young children in illegal places of
detention, beatings and humiliation, and confinement to their homes.
They also report that the security forces have failed to protect them
from armed attacks by thugs in the employ of a local landowner. One
woman is known to have died following a beating by security forces.
According to accounts by villagers and their lawyers as well as
information collected by Egyptian human rights organizations, the siege
of Sarando and its surrounding lands is linked to an ongoing dispute
between the family of landowner Salah Nawar and local villagers.
Villagers and their lawyers maintain that they have a legal right to
remain on land many have farmed for generations. But that the Nawar
family has used intimidation and fraud to attempt to force villagers
farming the disputed lands to sign documents relinquishing that right.
In fact, the current attacks occurred as lawyers prepared to obtain
copies of land ownership documents that they say would validate the
villagers' claims to the land in question. The head of the Damanhour
Center for Police Investigations has reportedly used arbitrary
detention, false criminal charges, and intimidation to assist the Nawar
family in its efforts to force villagers from the disputed lands. Human
rights activists from the Land Center for Human Rights and the Rural
Studies Center, who have been following the case since January 2005,
estimate that up to ten thousand villagers in Sarando and its hamlets
may be affected by the dispute.
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