The Salafi Dawah in Rafah celebrated the presidential victory of Mohamed Morsy on Saturday by holding a conference to outline the demands and recommendations of Sinai residents.
The gathering, held in Rafah’s Sadat region, was attended by tribal chiefs, sheikhs, different political and popular forces and various religious and revolutionary movements under the title “The Conference of Sinai’s People and Their Post-Revolution Aspirations.”
Salafi Dawah’s spokesperson, Marie Arar, asserted that the conference is based on the objectives and principles of the 25 January revolution and comes as a result of the deprivation and marginalization of Sinai’s people, whose rights as Egyptians citizens have been violated for over 30 years.
Arar added that after the revolution, the people of Sinai hope for a better future in which they have equal citizenship rights and are compensated for years of deprivation and neglect.
For decades, the peninsula has been a remote area neglected by the central government, which invests only in its tourism sector. Its population, mostly composed of Bedouin tribes, has complained of discrimination and ill treatment by security forces.
Arar said that Sinai residents from all communities attended the gathering, adding that they are putting the future development of Sinai in the hands of the new president.
He announced the demands and recommendations of Sinai citizens that were reached during the conference, including: approaching the development of Sinai from a development perspective and not a security one, equality between the people of Sinai and Egyptians in other governorates and the right for Sinai residents to own their own land and property. Conference participants stressed that the people of Sinai have the right to evaluate the government’s efforts to meet their demands.
