Bohout's peasants referred to the court for confronting  authorities.

 Similar to the situation in Sarando, Damanhour, although in a comic manner this time, ten peasants from Bohout village, Nabarouh district, Daqahliyya governorate, have been referred to the court for resisting authority. This measure was taken after the heirs of Wafaaa Abdel Maguid Badrawi, supported by security forces, attempted to evacuate a group of peasants from their land in Bohout two months ago.·        It is worthy of mentioning here that the land in concern had been expropriated by the law of agrarian reform (military decree no. 140, 1961) from the deceased Abdel Maguid al-Badrawi, the father of the deceased Wafaa. The land had been distributed among peasants who continued to cultivate it since then. The general prosecutor of Mansoura decided that ten peasants be evacuated from the land. The peasants are:*Abdel Tawab Shehab, 86 years old                    * Eid al-Maghazi,45 *Ahmend Mahmound Sharif,  72   *Mohammed Mahmoud al-Tantawi  *Salah Mohammed Qaraqeesh,54  *Al-Moghazi Salem,                  65 *Mohammed Nabieh Badawi,  36  *Gamil Sal. Moghazi  (government employee inwaterdepartment).*Wahid Tawfeeq,                      50    *Samir Mohammed                  54 ·        It should be indicated that two of the peasants suffer from paralysis and a third suffers from cancer. Among the defendants is a government employee who has nothing to do with land or agriculture.·        . Talkha Court decided that the hearing session of the case no. 5531 will be on 18 January 2008. The defendants appealed to Mansoura Prosecution and the case will be heard by the court on 24 January 2008.   ·        It is clear that heirs and relatives of former landlords are powerful enough to influence concerned authorities. This was obvious in the case of Mershaq village in Dekernes, when the general prosecutor of Mansoura decided in 2007 that heirs of Zainab el-Etreby, who belong at the same time to al-Badrawi family, to get back the land confiscated by the law of agrarian reform and sold to peasants who paid the price in the form of installments. But the General Authority of Agrarian Reform refrained from offering the peasants the documents showing their possession of the land. What seems so strange is that some of those to whom the general prosecutor's decision came in favour have nothing to do with cultivation, and some of them passed away 10 years ago, while others are public figures. The decision was based upon police and prosecution investigations which included a deceased man among those targeted by the compliant, a situation that induced the villagers to file a lawsuit against the decision.·         In 24 th_ December 2007, heirs of former landlord Aziz al-Fiqi slammed the manager of legal affairs in the Interior Ministry in Sout al-Umma newspapers for he refrained from evacuating villages of Meet Shahala from their land upon a forged ruling, and asked the General Authority of Agrarian Reform to offer the papers in relation to the case.   ·        On 31 December 2007, the court of Ashmoun heard the appeal by peasants of al-Islah village in Samadoun against a court ruling evacuating peasants from 393 feddans they had bought from the General Authority of Agrarian Reform. The court postponed the hearing to 4 February 2008. ·        Shahenda Maqlad, a Tadamon member has been referred to the court upon a lawsuit filed against her by heirs of al-Fiqi family under the pretext that she tarnished their reputation in a book she wrote in 2006 on the struggle of the peasants of Kamshish village. The case will be heard by the Abbasiya court of appeal on 8 March 2008. Tadamon committee                                     31 December 2007     our  committee  e.mail :egyptianpeasantsolidarity@gawab.com  our committee web site:tadamon.katib.org