Authorities stopped the demolition of a man's farm barn in Hail on Wednesday after he threatened to commit suicide should his property be destroyed. The man, 50, was said to have illegally built his farm barn on a government land, which prompted the government to proceed with demolition procedures. “You will demolish it only over my dead body,” the man said while standing in the way to block entry of bulldozers into his property. He said that he had a pending case with the Hail Emirate to consider his ownership of the farm. The authorities backed off from the farm barn and said they would report the case to the Hail Emirate. “Hail Mayoralty is responsible for this problem as it has overlooked construction in the area in question since the beginning,” said Abdulrahman Al-Belwi as he was going back into his farm barn. The mayoralty even officially allowed the ‘illegal' residents to have the power connected to their farms and homes in the area, he added. “Did not the mayoralty know it was a government land to begin with?,” he said. “I have legally bought the land from its original owner and received a construction permit from the mayoralty and now they want to demolish it?,” he said. Al-Belwi is only missing the land title which is still being processed at the mayoralty and the court, he said. Another resident said that he has spent over SR800,000 to build his house in the area and he would firmly object to its destruction on groundless bases. “I have evidence against the mayoralty that officially allowed the Electricity Company to hook up power cable into my house with no objection to the land ownership,” said Mifleh Al-Shammari. “How could the government offices process paperwork of services for citizens in a land that is supposed to be owned by the government? Something is wrong here,” he said. The residents said that they would file a case of the Court of Grievances against the mayoralty.
