Press Release
Warraq Island: A Bleeding Wound, Continuous Pain, and a Full-fledged Crime by the Regime
(Translated)

Prime Minister, Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, followed up on Sunday 28/7/2024, the executive status of the development works of the new urban complex on Warraq Island, in a meeting attended by many ministers, ministry officials, and concerned authorities. At the beginning of the meeting, the Prime Minister stressed the need to expedite the work of compensating those entitled immediately, as well as the need to adhere to the timetables set for implementing the evacuation works of homes and lands in the development plan. The Prime Minister directed the continuation of targeted development projects to bring about a qualitative shift in services on the island, while decisively confronting any attempts at illegal construction on the island, and preventing the return of random (building) phenomena. (Al Youm Al Sabee 28/7/2024)

The residents of Warraq Island in the Nile, Egypt, resumed their protests in rejection of displacement from their lands, police practices, and the arrest of activists. The residents chanted slogans demanding the release of the detainees, and affirmed their adherence to their homes and land. (Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 23/7/2024)

Around 200,000 citizens live on Warraq Island, which includes 6,000 properties. Over the past weeks, police forces conducted daily visits to the island’s residents who refused to vacate their homes and sell their properties, before the island’s residents were surprised by the circulation of “fake sale interest” forms showing their approval to sell their lands. Videos of Warraq residents expelling security personnel from their properties spread on social media, some of whom were carrying these fake forms and protesting the police’s prevention of the entry of construction materials into the island.

The Egyptian regime does not respect any covenant or kinship with the Egyptian people, but rather practices bullying on them and acts as a broker who sells people, their wealth and their properties for a cheap price. This is what it did in Maspero, is doing in Warraq and will do in any land where it may see the possibility of investment or where those who have money and can fill its coffers may desire it in exchange for enabling them to use it and exploit it. In the eyes of the regime, all of Egypt is Maspero, Ras al-Hikma and Warraq Island, all at its disposal and the people of Egypt own nothing in it. This is why it granted the army lands on both sides of any road that is built to ensure their loyalty, and granted the Jews gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean after the border demarcation agreement, and bought the production of these fields from them, Egypt and its people have no dignity!

We have said and we repeat that Warraq Island belongs to its people and residents, and it is not permissible to expel them from it or force them to vacate it and hand it over under any circumstances. It is known that land is owned by development, housing and agriculture, based on the saying of the Prophet (saw): «مَنْ أَحْيَا أَرْضاً مَيْتَةً فَهِيَ لَهُ»“If anyone makes a barren land productive, then it belongs to him.” And His saying (saw): «مَنْ عَمَرَ أَرْضًا لَيْسَتْ لِأَحَدٍ فَهُوَ أَحَقُّ بِهَا»“He who develops land that does not belong to anyone, has the most right to it.”

Jurists have agreed that land that is not owned by anyone and in which there is no trace of cultivation or use is owned by its revival. They have agreed that land that has a known owner through purchase or gift whose ownership has not been interrupted may not be revived by anyone other than its owners, and the land may not be taken from its owners or from those who revived it through planting, cultivation, habitation, or any form of development.

Warraq Island, like all the lands that the people of Egypt have revived and developed and inherited from their ancestors, is their private property, which is proven by its cultivation, development, and habitation, as the Prophet (saw) said: «مَنْ أَحْيَا أَرْضاً مَيْتَةً فَهِيَ لَهُ» “If anyone makes a barren land productive, then it belongs to him.”

The basic principle of land is that its development and revival is one of the reasons for its legitimate ownership. It is not permissible to take it from them, neither by enticement, nor by force or coercion, nor under the pretext of developing it, as the regime claims. The state must also provide them with everything they need to live a decent and stable life. If it really wanted to develop it and provide services to it, what would prevent that?! Should the big businessmen and elites buy it so that services can reach it?! Is it not the state’s duty to care for the people of Egypt, provide them with all services, and provide them with a decent life? Or is that decent life of levels based on the amount of money they own, their position in power, and their proximity to decision-makers?!

O noble people of Warraq Island: It is your land; a legitimate right that you must not relinquish. Your steadfastness in the face of the regime's campaigns is a duty, and the people of Egypt must support this right of yours and protect you from the regime and its brutality so that you may be one hand that prevents the encroachment and greed of this regime.

O people of Egypt, Al Kinanah: The hand of the regime did not and will not stop at Warraq Island, but will extend to every land where it glimpses even a little distinction and the possibility of investment, as it did with the Maamoura gardens in Alexandria, and it will seize it by force and coercion. Your standing in the face of the regime now and preventing it from encroaching and assaulting the people of Warraq and seizing their land from them is a Shariah duty, if you let them down today, the regime will single you out one by one and you will say on that day "I was eaten the day the white bull was eaten", and we were attacked the day we left the people of Warraq alone to confront the regime. So, declare a unified position against a regime that doesn’t respect you and neither respects covenants or kinship with you, that squanders your rights and wealth, fights you in your land and strength, and declares war on your Deen.

O people of Egypt, Al Kinanah: What guarantees you justice and rights is the application of Islam in its state, the Khilafah Rashida (Rightly-Guided Caliphate), on the method of the Prophethood. This is the idea that the regime and those who work for it fight, and it alone is the lifeline for you and for the nation as a whole. We in Hizb ut Tahrir carry its complete civilizational project for you, ready for immediate implementation. So work with us to implement Islam, which restores rights to their people and guarantees justice for the people of Warraq and all of Egypt.

O sincere ones in the army of Egypt: When Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, was in his prison in Damascus, the executioner came to him and said: Forgive me, our Sheikh, for I am under orders. Ibn Taymiyyah said to him: “By Allah, if it weren’t for you, they would not have been unjust!” By Allah, if it weren’t for you, the regime would not have been unjust to Egypt and its people, nor would it have been tyrannical towards them, nor would it have been able to enslave them as it is doing now. By Allah, you will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment, the day when the Allah, the Highest, will call upon you:

[وَقِفُوهُمْ إِنَّهُمْ مَسْئُولُونَ * مَا لَكُمْ لا تَنَاصَرُونَ]

“And stop them; indeed, they are to be questioned * [They will be asked], "What is [wrong] with you? Why do you not help each other?” [As-Saffat: 24-25]

Neither it nor its money nor its positions and privileges with which it tempts you and buys your Deen, honour and integrity, will benefit you. So, prepare yourselves for the day when you will meet Allah while people will cling to your necks saying, “O Lord, they have let us down and empowered your enemy and our enemy over us.”

O sincere ones in the army of Kinanah: Your Shariah duty is to protect the people from the brutality of this regime, to protect the people from it and prevent its brutality against them. Your first duty that guarantees the people’s care and preserves their rights and dignity is to uproot this regime from its roots with all its tools, symbols and implementers, and to support those working to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing the Khilafah on the method of the Prophethood; protecting the people from the brutality of every oppressor and restoring their dignity and pride. This is your role and this is your job for which you will be asked before Allah (swt). So, hasten, perhaps Allah will open up with you, so that we see it as a reality that pleases Allah with us all, and Egypt’s light will shine with you, Allah willing. O Allah let it be sooner rather than later.

[يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اسْتَجِيبُوا لِلَّهِ وَلِلرَّسُولِ إِذَا دَعَاكُمْ لِمَا يُحْيِيكُمْ]

“O you who have believed, respond to Allah and to the Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life” [Al-Anfal: 24]

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Egypt