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The Egyptian Center For Housing Rights

Government Authorities Appear to Compromise Faced with mounting pressures, Government authorities have moderated slightly their previous position, staunchly denying Duwayqa's demolition victims their rights to compensation and alternative housing. They have offered, instead, to remove the victims to a remote area in compensation for their homes, demolished without warning last Mother's Day, 21 March. The ECHR has launched a campaign in support for Duwayqa's victims, whose rights were neglected by the authorities, including the Minister of Housing Muhammad Ibrahim Sulayman, who also represents Duwayqa in the People's Assembly (parliament). In light of official obstinance, the Center has sought the intervention of concerned members of the Egyptian parliament, who have presented inquiries to the minister on this case, as well as international institutions, such as the UN Committee on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing. Meanwhile, ECHR lawyers filed a lawsuit to demand judicial remedy and compensation for the victims. The ECHR is campaigning for a practical solution in the form of suitable alternative housing for the victims in the new units already located in Mansha'at Nasr, and to compensate the victims for their belongings ruined during the illegal and violent demolition of the homes they built and lived in already for many years. The government's current proposal would have the Duwayqa residents removed to Badr City, an isolated area 48km from their homes in Cairo, lacking the most basic infrastructure. The poor victims cannot afford the high cost of commuting daily to their sources of livelihood in Cairo. Moreover, the government requires that victims pay a LE 1,000 (US$258) advance and a monthly rent of LE 102 ($26) to provide them unfinished units in the city after a period of four months. This means also that these families, earning an average income of only LE 200, will have to bear the additional bank expenses, water and electricity supply fees, as well as the costs for finishing and furnishing the replacement units without compensation for their own property, which the authorities destroyed on 21 March. Most people, therefore, would prefer living in slums, or even tents, than to indulge the authorities' punishing offer that they tout as if a stroke of magnanimity. ECHR notes the stark contradiction between the officials' statements and actual real practices. For officials usually claim, in accordance with Egypt's domestic law, that no eviction will be carried out without suitable alternative housing or compensation. However, the government bulldozed 32 Duwayqa homes in the most inhuman way without prior notice, with most victims being severely beaten up by security forces. A state of discontent prevails among the victims, who deserve to receive new housing units in their own neighborhood of Monsha'at Nasser, as they view living in Badr City as a kind of forced exile. Government authorities, however, understand very clearly that granting victims alternative units in Badr City would not settle, but only exacerbate the problem: The additonal burden the government is proposing for them will deepen the victims' impoverishment. If the government really wants to solve the housing problem of those victims and others in Egypt, it should find adequate alternatives in the places where the people live and work. In this particular case, the government is building a showcase low-income housing project in Mansha'at Nasr, adjacent to the Duwayqa demolition site. ECHR proposes that the government restore the Duwayqa victim's housing rights within that current project, whereas already a considerable number of units reportedly are being be allocated there for the relatives and cronies of corrupt officials. The ECHR supports the right of those victims to receive new housing units in their own area of Duwayqa, which would conform with the state's legal and treaty-bound responsibility to respect the citizens' right to housing, including compensation for victims of crime and abuse of power.

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