Kiosks sellers are protesting a hike in rent prices.
The vendors, who gathered on the steps of the Journalist’s Syndicate, say they were asked to pay EGP 300 a month about two weeks ago by a representative of Al-Ahram.
Al-Ahram collects rent from the vendors for the syndicate, which owns the kiosks.
The vendors sell a variety of goods like newspapers and drinks, which they buy themselves. The vendors don’t all pay the same rent, depending on where their kiosk is, but none usually pay more than EGP 100, according to protesters.
Adham Mohamed, one of the protesters, has run a kiosk since 1956, when the rent was EGP 3.5. “The rent was raised from EGP 10 to 20 to 60 and even 80. Then, an employee at Al-Ahram, said that he wants to raise it to EGP 300… ‘you either pay or you lose your livelihood’ [he said] and this is without any law,” Mohamed said. “He wants to raise the rent from 60 to 300, why? We have children, some of us have around 10 children…what do we do, sell the children?” one of the protesters cried.
Another protester, Mohammed Fahmy had inherited the kiosk from his father, who had started running it in 1950 and paid a rent of EGP 3.5 at the time, said, “we are living in the time of injustice… My kiosk has been here since before the [1952] revolution, nothing like this has ever happened before.” He currently pays EGP 80 a month.
The vendors say they received over the past two weeks letters with threats saying that if they don’t pay, they will not be allowed to use the kiosks. One of them said he received two of those letters.
The protesters claimed that there are over 500 who run and work at the Journalists’ Syndicate kiosks.
