Prepared by: Rahma Samy, Researcher at the Monitoring and Documentation Unit at AFTE
Edited by: Mostafa Shawky, Researcher at the Monitoring and Documentation Unit at AFTE
Table of Contents
Section I: Exclusion Of Publishing Houses for Political Reasons or Without Reasons
- The Fair’s charter allows banning without citing reasons
Section II: Confiscation and Prohibition of Books During the Fair Activities
Methodology
The report relied on 7 testimonies from writers and owners of publishing houses, who participated in the 55th edition of the Cairo International Book Fair, and also relied on reading the reports and statements issued by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) about the fair during the past years, in addition to reading the most important news and reports that dealt with the fair, and based on the report issued by AFTE last year entitled “banned from the Cairo International Book Fair… A report on the activities of the 54th Cairo International Book Fair”.
Introduction
The 55th Cairo International Book Fair was held this year under the slogan “We create knowledge… We create knowledge… we preserve the word”, and its cultural events were held from January 25th to February 6th at the Egypt International Fair Center.
The opening of the fair this year was preceded by a significant controversy over the exclusion of a number of publishing houses from participating in the fair despite fulfilling all procedures for participation in the fair, and with the beginning of the events, another noise rose related to preventing books from displaying in some publishing houses, without giving any reasons to the book writers owners.
AFTE noted a number of violations in the fair in its latter 55th edition, all related to freedom of expression and the right to creativity; ranging from preventing houses from participating, or ordering books to be removed from the shelves, which we are trying in this report to focus on.
Section I: Exclusion Of Publishing Houses for Political Reasons or Without Reasons
“The impact of banning and restricting the freedom of creativity, thought and expression can be considered to have led publishers to search for safe zones in their publications to avoid the severity of the banning procedures, as it causes great commercial losses to publishing houses and makes them refrain from contracting with the writer whose writings might cause such disturbance.”
A few days before the start of the fair, news circulated about the exclusion of some publishing houses from participating in the fair in its 55th session, despite the fulfillment of all the usual procedures, as well as the renewed exclusion of Tanmia Publishing House, for the third year in a row. Moreover, none of the publishing houses that were excluded or those that were unable to register in the initial stages received any official reasons for the ban on participation.
The publishing house Al Kotob Khan announced the denying of its participation, without justification, in the activities of the fair for this edition of the fair. Through a statement on its official page on “Facebook” the publishing house stated “we were surprised at the last minute, a few hours before receiving our partition, that we were arbitrarily prevented from participating in this edition by the fair management, without giving any clear reasons or prior official notification. In fact, the space agreed upon for our pavilion was handed over to another publishing house, despite the payment of all expenses and the fulfilment of the paperwork required to participate in the fair, according to the announced conditions. This means squandering the efforts of writers and staff at the publishing house for many months in preparation for participating in the most important cultural event of the year.”
Karam Youssef, founder of the publishing house, said in her statements that the current edition would have represented the twelfth participation of Al Kotob Khan in the Cairo International Book Fair, emphasizing, “We were not banned in any previous session of the fair, and no book was confiscated for the house before that.”
According to Youssef, the pavilion allocated to them was handed over to another publishing house, despite “paying the expenses and fulfilling the required paperwork according to the announced conditions,” noting that she does not know the fate of the expenses, adding, “Other publishers, as well, were prevented from participating.”
The exclusion of Al Kotob Khan the day before participating in the fair was also repeated with Tanweer publishing house, which announced in its statement, “we regret to inform you that our participation in this year’s Cairo International Book Fair has been withheld, along with a number of fellow publishers, and we were notified of this only one day before receiving our partition, 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 communicated with the relevant authorities in the Egyptian Publishers Association and the General Egyptian Book Organization, but we reached a cul-de-sac, and that this cancellation is nothing but an arbitrary decision that is not in the interest of publishers, nor in the interest of the Egyptian cultural climate.”
Dewan El-Arab publishing house also joined the list of those excluded from participating in this fair’s edition, joining Tanmia, which renewed its exclusion as in previous editions. The three excluded houses were characterized by their prevalence within the cultural and literary circles, as they had been present on the scene for many years and offered various publications “intellectual/philosophical/religious”.
Hours after this statement, Dewan El-Arab announced that it would return to participate in the fair after rectifying the error, but without explaining the reasons for the exclusion or participation, and the same was the case with Al Kotob Khan Publishing House, which stated that upon contacting the officials at the fair, they confirmed that the matter has been resolved and the issue has been overcome without commenting on the circumstances of the matter.
In his testimony to AFTE, a staff member of Tanweer Publishing and Media – who preferred to remain anonymous for security reasons – an independent Egyptian publishing house focused on publishing intellectual and literary works, said that “on January 22nd, 2024, the house was surprised to be notified one day before receiving the partition allocated to it at the fair, of blocking their participation in this year’s Cairo International Book Fair, and that after communicating with the relevant authorities in the Egyptian Publishers Association and the General Book Authority, we did not reach reasons about preventing us from participating, considering this an arbitrary decision that is not in the interest of publishers, nor in the interest of the Egyptian cultural climate”, despite the similarity of the ban status of Tanweer with other publishing houses. Their participation was not resumed, in contrast to Al Kotob Khan and Dewan El-Arab publishing houses, to which our source did not find an answer, stressing that the “material and moral losses” to prevent them from participating are immense.
- Frequent blocking from the source for security reasons
It was a little different, however, for Tanmia, according to an official inside the publishing house – who refused to be named for security reasons – the house has been banned from participating for the fourth consecutive year “we don’t know the real reason behind the ban from participating in this year’s edition, and we don’t know the reasons for what happened with us from the beginning or who is behind it, despite repeated attempts to participate without success.”
He stressed that “we don’t get notified to participate or not, we just submit the papers, we don’t get approval and we don’t have an opportunity to book a partition at the fair like other publishing houses, where the submission is in two stages, “The first is to submit the papers through the window on the website, and the second is to open the electronic system to book a space,” he said. Adding, “we always don’t make it to the second stage. It is unlikely that there is an error in the system.”
It is noteworthy that preventing Tanmia publishing house from participating in the fair for the first time, three editions ago, came after the arrest of its founder, publisher Khaled Lotfi, and his military trial where he was sentenced to five years in prison with labor and enforcement, on charges of disclosing military secrets, and broadcasting false news, statements and information, against the background of publishing the book of the Israeli historian Uri Bar-Joseph, entitled in his translation into Arabic as “The Angel: The Egyptian spy who saved Israel.” In agreement with the Arab Scientific Publishers House in Lebanon, which has the privilege of translating the book into Arabic, by publishing and printing a copy of the book in Egypt so that its price is affordable for the Egyptian reader, suggesting that the exclusion of Tanmia from participating in the fair is due to security reasons.
- The Fair’s charter allows banning without citing reasons
Going back to the charter of the fair’s 54th edition, we find that item 12 stipulates “The fair management has the right to accept or reject the participation of any publishing house without showing reasons to the advertisers after presenting them to the president of the fair.” This allows the fair management to arbitrarily reject the participation of any publishing house even if it has not committed any of the offences listed in the charter, as there are no rules governing this matter other than the opinion of the fair management.
According to the reasons cited in the charter, which refer to the cases in which a publishing house’s participation may be cancelled, we find the most prominent of them the following, “displaying a book that is in judicial dispute, or displaying a forged, copied or imitated book, or displaying books that violate freedom of thought and creativity, as well as the principles imposed by Egyptian law and public morals, or prejudice to religions, or violating the conditions of the necessary powers of attorney inside the fair for publishing houses, or holding seminars inside the sales headquarters, or violating the design conditions inside the pavilion.” These are violations that were not breached by any of the houses that were banned.
- How some publishers tried to bypass the effects of the ban
In light of the additional losses incurred by the prevention and prohibition policies of the publishing sector in Egypt, which is already suffering from an unprecedented crisis due to the doubling of the prices of paper and printing supplies, coinciding with the devaluation of the Egyptian pound and the scarcity of foreign currency in a way that led to the high cost of the book publishing industry, which made many reluctant to buy them and resort instead to electronic copies of pirated books – some publishing houses that were prevented from participating in the fair for undisclosed reasons tried to hold an event called the “cultural festival” as a parallel event to the book fair, which begins and ends with the activities of the fair, so Tanmia announced during the period of the Cairo International Book Fair this year, holding of a parallel fair at its headquarters, with higher discounts than the discounts it would have offered during the fair, before it was banned from participating, and despite the attempt to circumvent the ban, its non-participation remains a clear exclusion and severe punishment for the publishing house.
While Tanweer for Publishing and Media announced that it had received any suggestions for sale through electronic platforms and others with open arms, as Tanweer Publishing and Media House, which was excluded one day before participating in the fair, explained that it would continue to sell books with discount packages that it would have provided in the fair before the ban so as not to hide their works from the public this year, from the packages of media thought and philosophy, such as works by Alija Izetbegović, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Abd al-Wahab al-Messiri, in exclusive editions and translations, Abdel Rahman Abou Zekri’s poetic writings or Mohamed al-Adawi’s miniature novels, and translated packages of masterpieces, such as Morteza Motahhari’s thought or Mustafa Mastour’s literature.
The impact of banning and restricting the freedom of creativity, thought and expression can be considered to have led publishers to search for safe zones in their publications to avoid the severity of the banning procedures, as it causes great commercial losses to publishing houses and makes them refrain from contracting with the writer whose writings might cause such disturbance.
Section II: Confiscation and Prohibition of Books During the Fair Activities
The fourth clause of the offenses and penalties stipulats in the fair’s regulations allowed for the prevention and confiscation of the display of some books under claims such as “the fair management can seize and confiscate books that violates the principles imposed by Egyptian law and public morals or books that contain any prejudice towards religions.” Such broad offenses can be used to prevent and confiscate any book.”
On the second day of the opening of its 55th edition, the Rwafead publishing house received a request from the fair management house to remove four books by the writer Anwar Al-Hawari, titled: “Awaiting Freedom, Democracy or Decay, Taming Tyranny, and The New Dictatorship“, after several futile attempts to convince the fair management by the publishing house.
According to the testimony of writer Anwar al-Hawari to AFTE, this repeated ban for the second year in a row, which prompted him not to talk about the matter, as he believes that “this year exactly happened what happened last year, so I kept silent and did not comment, I found that the topic does not deserve any attention.” Last year, his books Taming Tyranny and The New Dictatorship were banned from display at the 54th edition of the book fair.
While Islam Abdel Aty, owner of Rwafead Publishing House, said that “the management of the fair asked me on the second day of the book fair in its 55th edition to remove the three books mentioned above by the political writer Anwar Al-Hawari, despite the books obtaining an deposit number without an official decision and when I wondered about the official documents, something that is repeated for the second year in a row despite the presence of the same books in bookshops,” he said, stressing that the fair management and the head of the General Egyptian Book Organization asked him to remove the books from display. Meanwhile, the publishing house was able to hold a seminar inside the fair about a story collection after the management reviewed it, as it is the one that organizes the seminars.
The conditions for participation in the fair for its 55th session include that the participating publishing houses fill out and upload a copy of the list of books of the house in an Excel file form on the fair portal during submission, including “the name of the author, the name of the book, the deposit number, the price, and the classification, which indicates that the books were banned after the being displayed normally to participate in the fair without rejecting them.”
According to the testimony of Safaa Wali, the representative of the “Les Éditions Le Fennec” publishing house at the fair to AFTE – which is a Moroccan publisher – their published book titled “The Political Harem” was banned at the 55th Cairo International Book Fair. Within the framework of the participation of Les Éditions Le Fennec publishing house in the pavilion of Moroccan publishers in the aforementioned fair, the pavilion of the publisher received, on the sixth day of the fair’s launch, a visit by the censorship board of the fair to inform the representative of the house, “Safaa Wali”, of the decision to prevent the sale and display of the book “The Political Harem” and requested the withdrawal of the remaining copies and the removal of the poster advertising the book from the wall of the pavilion, which the publisher complied with out of respect for the decision of the fair management. “The same book was banned at the last session of the Riyadh International Book Fair in the same way.”
Wali stressed that the Les Éditions Le Fennec Publishing House condemns any restriction on freedom of expression. The Political Harem, written by Fatima Mernissi and translated into Arabic by Hussein Sahban, is a modernist reading of Islamic heritage and contributes to combating the obscurantist extremist ideology that has dominated Arab-Islamic culture for centuries. Interestingly, in 2023, a committee from the Riyadh International Book Fair withdrew the book “The Political Harem”, and the fair’s management justified its decision to withdraw the book and prevent it from being sold because some of its passages offend Prophet Muhammad, and his wives, according to Moroccan media.
Fatima Mernissi’s book “The Political Harem”, which was banned from participating in the 55th fair, deals with some of the questions that the author asks the reader at the beginning, related to the status of women in Islam and their ability to lead, among others.
The fourth clause of the offenses and penalties stipulated in the fair’s regulations allowed for the prevention and confiscation of the display of some books under claims such as “the fair management can seize and confiscate books that violate (freedom of thought and creativity), as well as the principles imposed by Egyptian law and public morals or books that contain any prejudice towards religions.” Such broad offenses can be used to prevent and confiscate any book, as the fourth clause allows fair management to seize and confiscate the book, close the partition, and take legal measures as prescribed by law. Or withdraw the book and fine the exhibitor a fine of EGP 1,000, and in case of recidivism, close the partition once and for all.
Law No. 20 of 1936, currently in force, specifies the steps for issuing any book, which begins with a deposit in the governorate or directorate where the publication is located. A receipt is given for this deposit, and the law specifies another set of conditions “that it should be stated on the first page of any publication or on the last page of it ‘the name and address of the stamp, the name of the publisher and his address if it is not the publisher, as well as the date of printing’”. And since publications in general were the most widespread means of communication and dissemination of ideas when the law was issued, the legislator tried to restrict the freedom of publication, as the law stipulates that if the name and address of the printer or publisher are not mentioned, the books are seized and subsequently confiscated through a court judgement, so the absence of a deposit number does not entail a penalty for the author or the publisher.
Thus, the required procedures are limited to documenting the day of publication and its details without delving into the content of the book, and the publishing house is committed to handing over the deposit number once it fulfils these conditions and without any other demands, except for depositing a number of copies within 3 months from the date of receiving the deposit number, to confirm that the book has been published and is not just a mere cover.
Conclusion
This report does not attempt to provide a comprehensive listing of all violations practiced before and during the launch of the Cairo International Book Fair in its 55th edition, but rather to shed light on a number of patterns of violations against freedom of thought and expression and freedom of creativity. Most notably, preventing publishers from participating without giving reasons, or for security reasons, as well as preventing certain books from circulation due to the nature of their topics.
AFTE affirms that such violations are not new and that their persistence greatly impacts the right of all Egyptian citizens to freedom of thought and expression as well as freedom of creativity. This, in turn, affects the Egyptian cultural climate in general and causes further deterioration of the Egyptian cultural condition in general.
1- Mada Masr, Al Kotob Khan: we were prevented from participating without providing reasons, published on January 24, 2024, last accessed on March 14, 2024…1750226969210331414 2- Tanweer Publishing House Facebook page, statement on the prohibition from participating in the exhibition, published on January 22, 2024, last accessed on March 14, 2024…865234338949737 3- AFTE, AFTE demands the immediate release of publisher Khaled Lotfy and considers his military trial a severe blow to the freedom of creativity, December 29, 2013, last accessed February 21, 2023… https://bit.ly/3ZkD4gR 4- The General Egyptian Book Organization, regulations of the 55th edition of the Cairo International Book Fair… https://fairs.gebo.gov.eg/assets/files/shrot.pdf 5- Al-Masry Al-Youm, Sara Reda, Learn about the registration method and conditions for the 2024 Cairo International Book Fair, published on October 23, 2023, last accessed on March 25, 2024.. 3018237 6- The General Egyptian Book Organization, regulations of the 54th edition of the Cairo International Book Fair… https://fairs.gebo.gov.eg/assets/files/shrot.pdf
