Hundreds of Warraq Island residents held a protest march on Tuesday, after the head of the authority tasked with developing the island failed to respond to demands they submitted last week, one of the participants in the march told Mada Masr. Hundreds of residents gathered in the street on Tuesday morning, on the deadline they had given authorities to respond to demands they submitted last week, including that they be granted lands within the state development project, according to the participant as well as videos published by other residents who attended the march. The crowd then marched toward the New Warraq City Development headquarters, where a heavy security deployment awaited them. Security officials told them that the head of the authority asked for a small group to enter for negotiations. The protestors refused, instead demanding that the authority’s head come down to meet them, in an attempt to get a direct response to the demands they had already submitted in writing. The resident who took part in Tuesday’s march said the authority head’s refusal to come down and meet the residents sparked anger among many of them, but that they kept it in check out of their keenness to keep the protest peaceful. But it showed “a lack of consideration, especially since he didn’t meet us when we came to hand over the demands,” the resident said. The same sentiment was clear at the protest. “Nobody has paid us any attention,” one of the protesters called out to the assembled crowd. “At this moment, we register our objection to the state’s disregard for our legitimate and just demands by saying just one thing: God is sufficient for us, and he is the best disposer of all affairs,” indicating the group’s loss of faith in the authorities’ seriousness. The residents then continued their peaceful protest march along the route that had been agreed to in advance. While the march had been planned without chants, still, the residents raised similar cries of “God is sufficient for us” and “one hand.” At the end of the march, the residents agreed to meet again on Friday to discuss their next steps, and raised the possibility of disrupting ongoing development work on the island. The residents had submitted a list of demands to the authority on August 18, foremost among them that they be allocated a plot of land within the island’s redevelopment area, where residents who have chosen to stay could build their own homes, according to a defined timeline, with clear and specific implementation mechanisms and fair conditions. They also put forward other demands concerning living and security conditions on the island. The group handed their written demands to the authority’s deputy chair at the time, with the head elsewhere with another group of Warraq residents, inspecting one of the island’s schools, supposedly to assess potential upgrades. The resident described to Mada Masr the authority head’s meeting with that group as part of security attempts to “divide.” One of the people in the group that did not join Tuesday’s march said there were some who had not attended the recent meeting that produced the list of demands. The group who went with the authority head on his school visit opposes holding marches to the authority’s offices, they told Mada Masr. Instead, they have been trying to communicate with officials at the authority and pressure them to implement “as many things as possible that would allow us to keep living on the island,” they continued, adding that they are convinced the government would not agree to give residents land on the island to replace their homes. The source pointed to what they saw as officials responding to some of the residents’ service-related demands, including bringing back sewage pumping trucks and beginning to clear demolition waste that had piled up along the island’s roads. Those same measures were described by the resident who took part in Tuesday’s march as “painkillers that don’t work anymore.” “Some people come and tell you, ‘We brought services,’ when they are our rights that were taken away from us in the first place,” they said. “They’re moving to get the land, so I’m demanding the land.” The island has seen a spike in tensions and incidents between residents and security forces in recent weeks, as residents face restrictions on the delivery of construction and building materials. The restrictions, tightening over the nine years since the government launched a major development project on the island, have led living conditions and access to services to deteriorate for residents. One of the residents said that the pace of construction work at the government’s development project on the island has visibly quickened over recent weeks, while residents of Warraq are unable to maintain or develop their own existing houses, and lack guarantees about the residents’ legal position on the island. Residents held a sit-in at one of the ferry ports leading to the island and used to deliver materials to the state project, which was concluded following negotiations in which authorities committed to permit material deliveries and improve services on the island. But on August 12, the New Warraq Development Authority denied that it had permitted the delivery of construction materials to the island.The post Warraq residents demonstrate to protest ‘state ignoring legitimate demands’ first appeared on Mada Masr.
