Old video from town in Egypt shared as a revolution in Egypt against the military regime

A video clip showing a group of people throwing stones has been recently shared multiple times on social media , with the following claim: “The revolution of the free people of Egypt against the military regime.” 

Kashif verified the video clip via the “INVID” tool and found that it is old and that the claim to be misleading. The video was published by “ Al Jazeera – Egypt ” account on Facebook on 8 September 2020, stating that “the video circulating is of the residents of the village of Seriaqos in Khanka, Qalyubia Governorate, throwing stones at the police to prevent the demolition of their homes.”

Upon examining the video clip, Kashif found that Al Jazeera Egypt account stated in the video clip that it was originally circulating on 24 August 2020. 

Egyptian media outlets, including “ Youm7 ” and “ Al-Masry Al-Youm ,” reported in reports published on August 27 and 28, 2020, “that the Seriaqos area, affiliated with the Khanka Center, witnessed stone-throwing incidents between police forces and a number of citizens during the implementation of a campaign to remove encroachments on agricultural lands and state property.” 

The Egyptian government had taken measures to remove unlicensed buildings, which was met with anger among the owners of buildings subject to demolition. In conjunction with this anger, the government announced a package of facilitations for reconciliation in building violations. 

Al-Arab newspaper reported on the demolition of illegal buildings, published on 14 September 2020, that the number of illegal buildings amounts to nearly two million homes, inhabited by about 10 million families from different classes. 

The Egyptian government explained that the 23rd wave of the campaign to remove encroachments on agricultural lands and state-owned lands in Egypt will be implemented in three phases. The first phase was implemented from 6 – 26 July, while the second phase will be implemented from 3-23 August. The third and final phase is scheduled to be implemented from 31 August to 20 September 2024.