{"id":17704,"date":"2025-01-20T22:50:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T20:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=17704"},"modified":"2026-10-24T15:07:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T13:07:52","slug":"banning-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/banning-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Banned from the Fair, Removed from the Shelves: Egypt\u2019s Publishers Under Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the launch of the 56th edition of the Cairo International Book Fair 2025 approaches, running from 24 January this month to 5 February next month, the General Egyptian Book Organisation, in its capacity as the body organising the fair (which brings together 1,345 Egyptian, Arab and international publishing houses), faces criticism within cultural circles in Egypt and concern within the human rights community over the continuation of the policy of barring specific publishing houses from participating in the fair. The reason is believed to lie in the publishing policies of those houses, which do not align with the orientations of the political authority in Egypt and the vision of its security agencies, particularly since the Organisation has been accustomed not to give reasons for the refusal, cases of which have clearly recurred in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cultural circles in Egypt were taken by surprise when Dar El Maraya<\/a> for Culture and Arts announced, on 31 December 2024 just past, that it had been barred from participating in the coming edition of the book fair. It noted that it has participated in the fair annually and regularly from 2017 until 2023, that its publications won the fair’s prizes twice during those years, and that it pays its financial obligations towards the fair regularly and has not failed in any year to pay all its obligations in advance, before the start of the fair and within the deadlines set by the Organisation. It added that all the administrative papers concerning Dar El Maraya are sound, up to date and fully in order in every legal and financial respect, and that copies of them are deposited with the Publishers Association and the Book Organisation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The publishing house said in a <\/span>statement<\/span><\/a>: “The General Book Organisation decided, without giving reasons, to bar Dar El Maraya from participating this year in the Cairo International Book Fair. Although El Maraya registered its participation within the set deadlines, we did not receive the payment order to pay the rent for our pavilion, as is the case with the rest of the publishing houses; on the contrary, we were surprised to find the house’s account on the fair’s website closed. Over the past weeks, the Publishers Association and many friends of El Maraya tried to intervene to find out the reasons for the refusal and to offer solutions to them, but the Book Organisation insisted on its position without offering any justification.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Publisher <\/span>Yehia Fekry<\/b>, executive director of Dar El Maraya for Culture and Arts, explains to Zawia3 that the house has been subjected to repeated pressure from the Artistic Works Investigations police over the past eight years, as they twice raided the house’s premises and confiscated a number of books and devices, while filing police reports against the house: the first time in 2022, after which Fekry was detained at Abdeen police station for more than 24 hours, and the second in July 2024, when one of the house’s trainee administrative assistants was detained for about 72 hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fekry says: “Most of the violations recorded against us in the police reports are illogical, such as being accused of publishing books without deposit numbers or without drawing up contracts with the authors, or of selling books published by other publishing houses, merely because there is a single copy of some books that reach us as gifts and that I keep in my personal library, or of using non-original software on the computers. All of this is completely untrue.” <\/span><\/p>\n

A security force came to Dar El Maraya’s pavilion on 30 June 2021, coinciding with the first day of the Cairo International Book Fair, made up of officers from the Artistic Works Investigations police and the National Security Agency, in addition to the fair’s security, at El Maraya’s sales outlet. They asked for a copy of the poetry collection “Curly” by political activist Ahmed Douma (who was imprisoned at the time) in order to review and examine it, and gave verbal orders to the house’s staff present at the time not to display or sell the book until they had determined their position on it, according to what the house’s director<\/a> stated at the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dar El Maraya for Culture and Arts announced, in a <\/span>statement<\/span><\/a> on 26 September 2022, that Yehia Fekry had appeared before the Abdeen Prosecution over an “artistic works” police report, after spending the previous night at Abdeen police station. It explained that a force from the Artistic Works Investigations police had raided El Maraya’s premises in downtown Cairo on the evening of the previous day, Sunday 25 September, and spent about seven hours examining the house’s licences, its book contracts and its computers. At seven in the evening, the force seized copies of some of El Maraya’s publications and some contracts with authors and took Fekry to Abdeen station, after the Artistic Works police drew up a report that included three violations: the titles of some published books differing from the contracts signed with the writers of those books; publishing the magazine “Maraya” without a licence from the National Media Authority; and the presence of some books not published by the house, loaded in PDF format onto one of the house’s laptops. It noted that lawyers Negad El-Borai, Khaled Ali and Anas Sayed submitted proof that the violations listed in the report were untrue, and the prosecution decided to release him on guarantee of his place of residence; he returned to Abdeen station at four in the afternoon until he was released, and he left the station at ten in the evening accompanied by his lawyers.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 29 July 2024, human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate <\/span>Khaled Ali<\/span><\/a> announced that after the end of a seminar held at Dar El Maraya for Culture and Arts on 27 July, and after all those present had left, a police force raided the house’s premises and detained Ibrahim Mostafa (one of the administrative assistants, a student at the Faculty of Commerce, Ain Shams University), who was subsequently brought before the Public Prosecution, which decided to release him pending investigations in case No. 5142 of 2024, Abdeen misdemeanours. He revealed in a post that the force that raided the house came from the Abdeen station investigations unit, the Artistic Works Investigations police and the Tax Evasion Investigations police, that it went on searching the place for nearly five hours, and that the Artistic Works police ended up seizing about 217 books and two computers. Nor did the raiding force stop there: the Tax Evasion police also seized files and financial documents belonging to the house.<\/span><\/p>\n

The publisher adds, speaking to us: “We were barred from participating in the fair by a decision of the General Book Organisation, which seems to feel dissatisfied with our publishing orientations. The Publishers Association conveyed to us the Organisation’s response that it has the right to bar any publishing house without giving reasons, even though over the eight years we have not been subjected to interference from the censorship bodies to prevent us from publishing our releases, except for one time when we were prevented from obtaining a deposit number for one of the books. After that, however, cases of verbal directives from the Artistic Works police recurred, to withhold some literary or historical releases from display and to refrain from distributing them, without giving reasons or any administrative decision being issued in that regard. It seems that the official bodies responsible for culture in Egypt are irritated by publishing houses that seek to produce progressive and democratic cultural and intellectual content.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The executive director of Dar El Maraya points out that the publishing market in Egypt has in recent years been subjected to severe economic pressure because of the effect of the rise in the dollar against the pound, which led production costs, from paper to printing supplies, to double. This was reflected in book prices and in a decline in sales, and the lightest books have become the bestsellers, especially amid the cost-of-living crises and a weakening sense of identity. He considers the decision to bar Dar El Maraya from participating in the fair tantamount to excluding it from the market, since the fair is the annual sales season and 75% of the house’s releases come out shortly before the fair. Despite being deprived of a presence at the fair and the losses this causes, the house remains committed to paying the financial dues of the writers and of those who work on preparing the books. Despite this loss, Fekry affirms that the house will continue to offer the finest literature and the most in-depth studies, calling on the authorities to support the publishing industry so that it can absorb the works of the large numbers of talented writers and researchers with whom Egypt abounds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>Bans, confiscation and tax cases: how are the Egyptian authorities targeting El Maraya publishing house?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Deprived of the book fair<\/b><\/h1>\n

The Dar El Maraya crisis is not the first of its kind. For three years, the bookshop and publishing house Tanmia<\/a> faced the General Egyptian Book Organisation’s refusal to grant it approval to participate in the fair, ever since the arrest of its founder Khaled Lotfy and his imprisonment in 2018, after he published an Egyptian edition of the book “The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel”, about Ashraf Marwan, son-in-law of the late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A force from the Artistic Works police stormed “Dar Tanmia” in September 2017 and arrested one of the house’s employees on the pretext of violating publishing standards by publishing and distributing the aforementioned book, and Tanmia’s officials destroyed 2,000 copies, the entire print run of the book at the centre of the case. In December 2017, however, the case was referred to the military court instead of the economic court, and the military prosecution summoned publisher Khaled Lotfy for questioning over the incident and ordered his pretrial detention pending the case. A <\/span>ruling<\/span><\/a> was issued against him by a military court in case No. 1298 of 2018, East Military Misdemeanours, in October 2018, sentencing him to five years in prison; the Military Court of Appeal upheld it in February 2019, and in December 2019 the Military Court of Cassation upheld the prison sentence. The publisher was <\/span>released<\/span><\/a> on 20 November 2022 after completing his sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fair’s 2017 edition had witnessed the detention of an employee of a Lebanese publishing house over the presence of a book dealing with the Shia doctrine, and the book fair administration <\/span>closed<\/span><\/a> the pavilions of “Dar Al-Quds” and “Al Yasser” after the Artistic Works police filed a complaint against them for selling Shia books. Ashraf Mamoun, director of the Department for Combating Publication Crimes at the General Directorate of Artistic Works Investigations, announced at the time that a report had been filed to confiscate five Shia books, and that these books had been confiscated immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2018, Haitham El-Hag Ali, head of the General Book Organisation at the time, <\/span>announced<\/span><\/a> that a number of books would be barred from the fair, that the censorship authority would confiscate any books expressing the thought of the “Muslim Brotherhood”, as a terrorist group by ruling of the Egyptian judiciary, and that the Organisation had allocated a place for censorship at Sour El-Azbakeya to prevent counterfeit books or books inciting violence and terrorism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2020, Palestinian publisher and writer Bisan Adwan<\/a>, co-founder of the Ibn Rushd publishing house, has been absent from the fair, after she was forcibly displaced from Egypt in March 2020 on a charge of atheism and placed on lists of those banned from entering the country. The deportation is believed to be due to her political dispute with the current authorities. The publishing house Aseer El Kotob<\/a> was also barred from participating in the book fair in 2022, for the first time, because it published books by the Iraqi Islamic writer “Ahmed Khairy Al-Omari”, who is intellectually counted among the Muslim Brotherhood, and against the backdrop of journalist Sameh Fayez’s accusation that the house is a Brotherhood one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2023, journalist Anwar El-Hawary <\/span>revealed<\/span><\/a> that his two books “Taming Tyranny” and “The New Dictatorship” had been confiscated from the book fair, and physician Khaled Abdel Rahman <\/span>accused<\/span><\/a> security bodies, which he did not name, of intervening to prevent Rawafed publishing house from printing his new book “42 Qasr El-Nil Street”, which was due to be released with the opening of the fair and which discusses the history of the Doctors’ Syndicate from its founding until now, including the strong syndicate mobilisation the syndicate witnessed in 2016 after security forces stormed Matariya Hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

After that, Sayed Saber, publishing director at Dar El-Montada for Publishing, <\/span>announced<\/span><\/a> that security bodies had demanded that the house remove the book “The History of the Zionist Movement and Its Organisations” by Mohamed Medhat Mostafa, which chronicles the history of Zionist associations in Egypt, their beginnings and their roles in the period before July 1952, from its pavilion at the 2023 book fair, without giving reasons, while the book’s author <\/span>stated<\/span><\/a> that it had been confiscated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Tripoli International Scientific Bookshop said it was surprised by the <\/span>confiscation<\/span><\/a> of the book “The Poetics of the History of Libya” and by its being barred from participating in the 54th edition of the Cairo Book Fair, accusing the fair’s deputy director at the time of withdrawing the copy on display in the pavilion and threatening to close the pavilion of the Libyan Publishers Union if she found another copy on display.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cultural circles were shocked when publisher Karam Youssef, founder and owner of the independent publishing house “Al Kotob Khan”, announced on 23 January 2024 that the house had been barred from participating in the Cairo International Book Fair. The publisher said in a post<\/a>: “After our utmost preparations for the Cairo International Book Fair, we were surprised at the last moment, a few hours before taking delivery of our pavilion, to be arbitrarily barred from participating in this edition by the fair administration, without clear reasons being given or prior official notification, and even to see the space agreed for our pavilion, for which all expenses had been paid and the papers required for participating in the fair completed in accordance with the announced conditions, handed over to another publishing house. This means squandering many months of effort by a distinguished group of writers, men and women, as well as the house’s staff, in preparation for participating in the most important cultural season of every year.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This came one day after Dar Tanweer for Publishing and Media announced that it, too, had been barred from participating in the 2024 book fair. <\/span>The house said in a <\/span>statement<\/span><\/a>: “Our participation in the Cairo International Book Fair this year has been blocked (along with a number of fellow publishers), and we were notified of this only one day before taking delivery of our pavilion, which remained reserved in our name until this morning. We spared no effort in trying to understand the reasons and motives that led to this, and we contacted the relevant parties in the Egyptian Publishers Association and the General Book Organisation, but we reached a dead end, and concluded that this cancellation is nothing but an arbitrary decision that serves neither the interest of publishers nor the interest of the Egyptian cultural climate.”<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>Ahmed Douma on his collection “Curly”: I wrote it in prison to escape defeat or explosion<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Books banned from circulation<\/b><\/h1>\n

About a year ago, the General Book Organisation withdrew the poetry collection “In a Red Crowd” by Egyptian poet Yonan Saad from bookshops and banned its sale, even though more than a year and a half had passed since the release of the book, which had been approved for publication and had remained in circulation in bookshops throughout this period, and no court rulings had been issued against it.<\/span><\/p>\n

As <\/span>Yonan Saad<\/b> recounts, he laughed when an employee at the Book Organisation explained that “In a Red Crowd” means the communist crowd. He turned this interpretation over in front of me several times, and reread the book written by his own hands in order to understand, but found no word that could suggest this to any human being who has learned to read and write, so he laughed his fill and thought the matter was simple: (a red crowd) because red is the colour of vitality, of blood and of surrender to desire, of madness and love. But after that they withdrew the book from the Book Organisation’s bookshops. The book was not banned from publication; on the contrary, it was approved for publication by a reading committee, was published and remained in circulation in bookshops for about a year and a half, and then suddenly someone noticed that they had to withdraw the book from the bookshops, as he put it to Zawia3.<\/span><\/p>\n

The poet asked whether the appearance in his collection of the line “The good communist and the greedy merchant arrange the chessboard, far from my heart and my beloved’s lips” had made the poem communist, adding in a post<\/a> on his personal account: “There is no political poem, or religious or nationalist poem. A poem is a poem; if it takes sides, it is spoiled and the poetry departs from it. The artist may become ideological, but his art does not; otherwise his art turns into anything but art, and he in turn will turn into anything except an artist. I may be a Marxist, but my poetry cannot be Marxist. I hope to see my book on the shelves at the next book fair.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The crisis of the collection “In a Red Crowd” is not the first of its kind: the <\/span>Attorney General<\/span><\/a>, Counsellor Mohamed Shawky, ordered in October 2024 an investigation into the collection “<\/span>Curly<\/span><\/a>” by political activist Ahmed Douma, on the allegation of contempt of religions, following a series of complaints filed against him by a number of people. The Public Prosecution said in a statement that it had read the poetry collection that was the subject of the complaint on the internet and found that it contained those phrases, and that it had ordered police inquiries into the incident and assigned a committee of specialists at Al-Azhar to examine the phrases of that collection.<\/span><\/p>\n

The collection, which Douma wrote during his imprisonment, had been confiscated as soon as its first edition was released in 2021, after a security force went to the book fair and prevented those in charge of El Maraya publishing house from displaying the collection, whether in its bookshops or at the book fair, or from distributing it. After Douma’s release from prison, the collection was banned from publication and distribution for a second time, and its signing ceremony was also cancelled, alongside a takfir campaign that besieged Douma and culminated in the Public Prosecution’s investigation into the collection in preparation for putting him on trial.<\/span><\/p>\n

Literary critic <\/span>Sabry Mamdouh<\/span><\/a> had revealed, in November 2023, that the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub) had refused to issue a deposit number for the book “A Summary and Verification of the Biography of Ibn Hisham” by writer Ashraf El-Khamaisy, which was due to be published by “Dar El-Moharrer for Publishing”. The author therefore believed that the subject of verifying and summarising heritage posed problems of some kind for the authorities, so the publisher requested a deposit number for a new novel by the same writer, but the deposit number was refused.<\/span><\/p>\n

In March 2022, novelist Alaa Farghaly announced that his novel “Bahler Passage”, published by Dar Diwan in January 2021, had been banned from circulation in Egypt, which stirred controversy and condemnation in cultural circles. The author revealed that it had been confiscated before it left the printing press, because some censorship body had found it indecent, offensive, pornographic, contemptuous of religions and a threat to social peace, before lawyers’ efforts succeeded in releasing it, so that it took part in the Cairo International Book Fair 2022. The writer said in a <\/span>post<\/span><\/a>: “Bad news I am forced to announce: my novel has been banned from circulation in Egypt since its release on 24 January until now. I have not seen the report prepared about it, nor do I know the body that banned it.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The novel “The Republic of As If” by writer Alaa Al Aswany, published by the Lebanese Dar Al Adab, had previously been banned from circulation, and its author had <\/span>announced<\/span><\/a> in 2019 that he had been summoned to appear before the military judiciary because of it. The novel’s events revolve around the 25 January revolution, told through the voices of its protagonists, who took part in the revolution, or resisted it and plotted to smother it, or rejected it out of fear like the rest, then supported it when it succeeded in toppling Hosni Mubarak, and as soon as it began to falter turned hostile to it once again.<\/span><\/p>\n

In October 2018, economist Abdel Khalek Farouk announced that National Security had confiscated his book “<\/span>Is Egypt Really a Poor Country<\/span><\/a>?” from the printing press in Dar El-Salam and arrested the printing press owner Ibrahim El-Khatib, even though the book had obtained the official permits. Following that, the Public Prosecution in Egypt ordered Abdel Khalek Farouk detained for four days pending the investigations it was conducting with him on the charge of spreading false news, days after his book was banned and confiscated, and the prosecution also ordered the owner of the printing press where the book was printed detained for the same period.<\/span><\/p>\n

Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji had been imprisoned in 2016 on the charge of “violating public modesty” because of the explicit language in his novel “Using Life”, a chapter of which had been published by the state-owned newspaper “Akhbar El-Adab”. Following broad solidarity with Naji, the Egyptian Court of Cassation <\/span>decided<\/span><\/a> to overturn his prison sentence and accepted the appeal he had filed, and he was released in December 2016 after spending about ten months in prison. His imprisonment came in violation of <\/span>Article 67<\/span><\/a> of the Egyptian Constitution, which prohibits imprisonment in literary publication cases and is limited to a fine. The article stipulates that “The State shall guarantee citizens the freedom of scientific research and of literary, artistic and cultural creativity, shall advance the sciences, arts and literature, shall look after creators and inventors and protect their creations and innovations, and shall work to apply them for the benefit of society.”<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>Have publishing houses in Egypt started evaluating writers based on the number of their followers?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The deposit numbers crisis<\/b><\/h1>\n

Farid Zahran, head of the Egyptian Publishers Association, former presidential candidate and head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, reveals to Zawia3 that during the last edition of the book fair about 120 publishing houses were deprived of participating in the fair by the body organising it, the General Book Organisation, which has the right not to give reasons for refusing the participation of any publishing house, a procedure that usually happens with publishers at Arab and international book fairs. However, the Organisation attributed the refusal to some of those houses having committed violations related to non-payment of fees, or to accusations that they sold deposit numbers, or failed to deliver books for which they had obtained deposit numbers years ago, or displayed other publishers’ books in their pavilions without an official power of attorney and payment of its fees, while it was rumoured that the barring of the rest came for security reasons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He adds that about 100 of those publishing houses were allowed to participate in the new edition of the fair, while another 20 houses were barred, and that the Organisation explained to the Publishers Association that the ban was due to the reasons it had previously announced last year, and to other reasons it will reveal later. He explains that media circles are interested in Dar El Maraya being barred from participating for the first time, whereas there are publishing houses that had been deprived of participation for years, among them the “Tanmia” bookshop, which was allowed to participate this year. He points out that some of the Artistic Works police’s actions are undisciplined, arbitrary and not carried out in accordance with the law, which harms publishing houses and bookshops, as happened with Al-Balad bookshop, owned by Zahran, which was closed for two years without any court ruling. <\/span><\/p>\n

The head of the Publishers Association explains that some publishing houses being deprived of deposit numbers for their new releases ahead of the fair is due to strict controls governing the issuing of deposit numbers, including the obligation on the publisher to deliver copies of the books for which deposit numbers were obtained to the General Authority of the National Library and Archives, affiliated with the Ministry of Culture. Many publishing houses, however, broke the law when they released books during the previous 15 years without delivering copies of them; their copies ran out and they were unable to send them, and some of them did not release books for which they had actually obtained deposit numbers years ago, which is criminalised by law and exposes the publisher to a fine, with the penalty possibly reaching imprisonment. When the Ministry of Culture wanted to apply the law, many publishers complained that they were unable to obtain deposit numbers for their new releases to participate in the book fair. He notes that the Writers Union succeeded in finding a temporary solution to the crisis, as the Ministry of Culture agreed to postpone the delivery of copies for overdue deposit numbers until after the end of the book fair and to extend the deadline for another year, on condition that publishers pledge to deliver them after the fair. He points to another problem, namely the heavy pressure on National Library staff before the fair, which means they complete only a limited number of deposit numbers, and he expects the problem to be solved after the activation of the digitisation system, which began trial operation two months ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

He affirms that the National Library and Archives is not a censorship body and has no right to refuse to grant a deposit number to an author or publisher for reasons related to a book’s content, and that it always affirms that it does not have security approvals and that refusals are due to violations having been committed. But he does not rule out that what happens on the ground differs from what is announced, since there has been no official body for censoring books since the sixties, though there is Artistic Works censorship of books coming from abroad, and there is no censorship of books by any body other than Al-Azhar, to ensure that the Qur’an is not distorted.<\/span><\/p>\n

He considers that the most important challenges facing the publishing sector in Egypt are that publishers are treated under the law as traders, which deprives them of the advantages enjoyed by those working in industrial fields, such as exemptions related to import and export, as is the case, for example, with the film industry, which is recognised in the chambers of industry. In addition, the Publishers Association law was issued in the sixties of the last century, at a time when political pluralism and trade union freedoms were criminalised. The law stipulates that the annual subscription is EGP 20, and “we cannot increase it because of the law, so we are forced to impose fees instead.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Under this law, no institution can obtain a deposit number for any of its publications without being a member of the Publishers Association, which has led to memberships of the association being granted to institutions that do not work in the publishing industry, such as Al-Azhar, the Cathedral, and government institutions that have representatives in the association, such as the Ministry of Education, and the head of the General Egyptian Book Organisation in his official capacity, whereas by definition a publisher is someone who holds a commercial register and a tax card and has an institution that seeks profit. This does not apply to those institutions, whose agendas and goals differ from the goals and concerns of publishers, which may create problems within the association.<\/span><\/p>\n

The cases of houses being deprived of participation in the book fair over the publishing policies of some publishing houses, rather than over violations of regulations and laws, and the cases of confiscation and withdrawal of published books and literary works from bookshops, may not be separate from the closure of a number of well-known bookshops and Egyptian publishing houses in recent years. In December 2016, security forces stormed the six branches of the “Al-Karama” libraries, owned by human rights lawyer Gamal Eid, and they were sealed with red wax. In September 2017, politician Farid Zahran, in his capacity at the time as chairman of the board of the “Al-Mahrousa” publishing house and owner of the “Al-Balad Cultural Centre”, announced that a security force had stormed Al-Balad bookshop in downtown Cairo, closed the bookshop, and confiscated some chairs, furnishings and books.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2019, the judiciary issued a decision to seize the assets of the Arab International Company for Commercial Agencies, owner of the “Alef” bookshop chain, the best known in Egypt, which had 37 branches in Egypt. In the same year, security forces raided Tanmia bookshop in downtown Cairo and confiscated the Arabic edition of the book “The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel” by Israeli writer Uri Bar-Joseph, which Netflix turned into a film, and the bookshop was closed at the time before it reopened. In January 2022, the Arab Network for Research and Publishing announced the closure of its two bookshops in Cairo and Alexandria because of the security harassment and incitement it had been subjected to, followed by the Cairo International Book Fair administration closing its pavilion, accusing it of forgery and deception in order to participate in the fair.<\/span><\/p>\n

For her part, the researcher at the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression <\/span>Sara Ramadan<\/b> explains that the case of the Cairo fair is a special case related to its regulations, which give the organising body the right to bar participation without giving reasons, which has opened the door to many violations in past years, in the form of contracts being cancelled, or rejected from the outset, or bans despite fees having been paid. She explains that “Tanmia bookshop” was the most affected, and that the barring of “Dar El Maraya” from participating this year is not unconnected to its security crisis over its publication of the collection “Curly” by activist Ahmed Douma, and that this ban deprives houses that are out of favour of opportunities for financial gain and for building relationships with the public and with other publishing houses. She adds that there are limited cases of books that were refused a deposit number, and there are books that were withdrawn from the market.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sara explains that the publishing sector in Egypt is governed by subsequent censorship, which comes after publication, but some printing presses or publishers fear the content of some books because of the climate restricting freedoms, which leads them to send them to the security agencies for approval so as not to run into a problem. Writers also practise self-censorship while writing, so that censorship begins at the source, given that imprisonment for publication offences exists in Egyptian law, which contradicts the Constitution. She notes that publishing houses that are out of favour are subjected to harassment by the Artistic Works Investigations police and the Tax Authority, at a time when the publishing sector is collapsing as a result of losses for economic reasons. <\/span><\/p>\n

While about 100 Egyptian publishing houses have been allowed to participate in the 2025 book fair, another 20 houses, among them Dar El Maraya for Culture and Arts, are barred from participating for unclear reasons. And while many authors are preparing to display their books at the fair and connect with their readers, other writers feel sorrow at their works, among them the collection “In a Red Crowd” by poet Yonan Saad, being deprived of display in bookshops and of participation in fairs, without any court ruling being issued to confiscate them and ban them from circulation. This comes at a time of growing demands to open up the public sphere in Egypt and raise the ceiling of freedom of expression.<\/span><\/p>\n

Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the Cairo International Book Fair 2025 brings together more than 1,500 publishing houses; in fact, the number of participants reached 1,345 publishing houses and entities from 80 countries, according to what the Minister of Culture announced.<\/em><\/p>\n

Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the second raid on Dar El Maraya’s premises took place in June 2024; in fact, it took place in July 2024, as stated in the paragraph on lawyer Khaled Ali’s announcement of it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the military court issued its ruling imprisoning publisher Khaled Lotfy in October 2019; in fact, it issued it in October 2018, before the Military Court of Appeal upheld it in February 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that novelist Ahmed Naji was released in December 2017 after about a year in prison; in fact, he was released in December 2016 after spending about ten months since his imprisonment in February of the same year.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farid Zahran, head of the Egyptian Publishers Association, revealed that the General Book Organisation, the body organising the book fair, deprived about 120 publishing houses of participation in the previous edition without giving clear reasons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[390],"tags":[],"kateb":[1550],"class_list":["post-17704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","kateb-aya-yasser"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/\u0627\u0644\u0643\u062a\u0628.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17704"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24159,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17704\/revisions\/24159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17704"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=17704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}