• January 28, 2007
  • 2 minutes read

Islamic Books Face Fierce Attack In Cairo Int’l Book Fair

Islamic Books Face Fierce Attack In Cairo Int’l Book Fair

The Islamic book is fiercely attacked this year in the Cairo International Book Fair.


This was blatantly proved after the security forces arrested two Islamic publishers last Friday at noon, Mohamed Abu Agour of Al-Kalima publishing house, and Ahmed Mahmoud of the Badr publishing house; they appeared before the State Security Police that fabricated a copyright case and released them later .


It is worth mentioning that this Fair is being held just a few weeks after shutting down a number of Islamic publishing houses in Egypt, and taking all the money inside them, topped by the Islamic Publishing House, consequently preventing them from participating in the current round of the International Fair.


The fair, lasting from Jan. 25 2007 to Feb., 4, 2007, includes 667 publishers who exhibit one million books in various sources of knowledge kinds, including 100000 new books,.


The number of publishers is about 44 more than last year’s. Concerning the foreign participation, the number of foreign publishers became 35 (6 more than last year’s 29), while the number of Arab publishers decreased from 118 publishers last year to 106 publishers this year (12 less than last year’s).


Concerning the cultural activity program in the book fair, it ignored the heated political incidents that Egypt is currently witnessing, although the number of this round’s seminars may reach up to 400 seminars and the speakers will be 1000 speakers, including authors, poets and cinematists; however, no Islamic scholar or intellectual was invited to take part in the seminars.


The main intellectual activity of this round is focusing on the late Egyptian man of letters, Naguib Mahfouz, as being the main character this year, apparently to avoid discussing the political issues.