Concerns about Censorship
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Concerns about Censorship
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July 6, 2004
His Excellency Mohammad Hosni Mubarak President of the Republic of Egypt Heliopolis Egypt Fax: 011 202 390 1998 Your Excellency, On behalf of the 2,700 members of PEN American Center, an international organization of writers dedicated to protecting freedom of expression wherever it is threatened, we write to express our concern about the recent decision by the Minister of Justice to grant the Al-Azhar Islamic Research Center (IRC) wide-ranging powers to ban and confiscate material deemed to violate religious principles. PEN fears that these powers granted to Al-Azhar may threaten the right to free expression of writers in Egypt. According to our information, religious authorities from the IRC raided book shops on May 29, 2004, and confiscated hundreds of publications that allegedly did not conform to Islamic teachings, including leading feminist writer Nawal El Saadawi's novel The Fall of the Imam. The novel was first published nearly twenty years ago, has been translated into fourteen other languages, and was re-issued in Arabic in 2002. El Saadawi's novel reportedly tells the story of a dictator surrounded by Islamic scholars who distort the Quran to justify the dictator's corrupt actions. PEN American Center is seriously concerned that the banning orders imposed by Al-Azhar on Nawal El Saadawi and others violate their right to free expression as guaranteed by the Egyptian constitution and by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a signatory. There are also fears that the banning of these books may encourage violence by fundamental-ists against secular writers targeted by Al-Azhar. PEN calls upon your Excellency to take immediate steps to guarantee the safety of all writers targeted in recent book raids, and urges the Egyptian authorities to reconsider the powers of censorship granted to Al-Azhar. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Hannah Pakula Chair, Freedom to Write Committee Larry Siems Director, Freedom to Write and International Programs
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