{"id":7278,"date":"2011-05-25T10:11:18","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T06:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=7278"},"modified":"2011-05-25T10:11:18","modified_gmt":"2011-05-25T06:11:18","slug":"censors-making-a-comeback-in-tunisia-and-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/censors-making-a-comeback-in-tunisia-and-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"Censors ‘Making a Comeback’ in Tunisia and Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It initially seemed as though Tunisia would be quick to cancel most literary censorship<\/a> after the ouster of Zein El Abideen Ben Ali. But, following the interim government\u2019s passage of a\u00a0new censorship law<\/a>, censors are \u201cmaking a comeback<\/a>.\u201d They\u2019ve begun by banning a number of websites, according to Global Voices Online.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Egyptians came out in force yesterday to protect their right to free speech online, with a #noSCAF day<\/a> of criticizing the Armed Forces. However, despite this day\u2019s apparent success, relatively little has been said about the continued role of the Egyptian Censors\u2019 Office in limiting literature.<\/p>\n

The censors\u2019 office officially doesn\u2019t \u201cban literature,\u201d as they are quick to state. However, they do continue to control imported books. Even Ibrahim Farghali\u2019s acclaimed Sons of Gabalawy<\/em>, which was printed in Egypt, has been prevented from re-entering the country<\/a>. And several other avenues of censorship are also available.<\/p>\n

Our friend Ali Abdel Mohsen reports on the censorship schizophrenia in today\u2019s Al Masry Al Youm<\/em><\/a>. While head of the Egyptian Board of Censors Sayed Khattab believes \u201cwe are living in the age of freedom,\u201d he adds that \u201cnobody can reasonably say we should just cancel the whole institution\u201d of censorship.<\/p>\n

Abdel Mohsen says that Khattab is quick to condemn the existing censorship laws. But the changes Khattab proposes don\u2019t challenge the core of these laws. Khattab reportedly insists that censors have an important role in Egypt, which includes:<\/p>\n

giving advice and knowledge to the public, and facilitating and encouraging ongoing dialogue between the public and the artists within a framework that does not offend any sensibilities.<\/p>\n

(Cough.)<\/p>\n

Officially, Egyptian authorities don\u2019t censor books that are published within Egypt; they only control titles that are imported from abroad. Internal censorship laws still apply to theater and films scrips. However, those that concern books were lifted years ago.<\/p>\n

However, august and award-winning Egyptian author Salwa Bakr told Abdel Mohsen, \u201cthat didn\u2019t mean they stopped censoring, they just did it in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since distribution is monopolized by two government-owned agencies, they would distribute only a tiny fraction of the total printed copies of books deemed to be potentially troublesome, making them available in obscure selling points, while storing the other copies and claiming that \u201cthey just didn\u2019t sell,\u201d Bakr says.<\/p>\n

Also, books can be censored after publication\u2014yanked from shelves and their authors and publishers fined\u2014as with Magdy al-Shafee\u2019s graphic novel, Metro<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Indeed, censorship can take part at any place in the process:\u00a0 Khaled al-Berry\u2019s Negative<\/em>, for instance<\/a>, was nearly censored by a man in the printing workshop who refused to work with the book because of its \u201cobscene\u201d sex scene. Fortunately, 20LE was enough to change the gentleman\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

Many have said that it\u2019s \u201ctoo soon\u201d to talk about dismantling censorship processes because of conservative Egyptian audiences. But Bakr told Abdel Mohsen that dismantling the office would provide \u201ca shock that would benefit society, forcing people to reevaluate the role of censorship as well as topics that are supposedly taboo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bakr told Abdel Mohsen:<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve lost so much because of censorship. Culturally, we\u2019ve taken huge steps back.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anti-censorship movement in Tunisia: creativity, courage and hope! <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: Following a relatively brief lull in censorship activity in Tunisia and Egypt it appears they’re back in business again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":7280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,5],"tags":[3130,324,105,125,18300,5774,427,6346,18322],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}