Egypt: Recent Freedom of Expression and Human Rights Violations

Al-Masry Al-Youm reports today that Egyptian security officials confiscated a novel entitled “Leader Shaves His Hair,” and arrested its publisher El-Demeiry Ahmed, because they believed the novel insults Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi. The novel, written by Idris Ali, “tackles social conditions in Libya in the late 1970s.”

Sawasya Human Rights Center said confiscating the novel violates freedom of expression in Egypt and the legal statute that prohibits doing so without a “legal clearance.” It also said the incident “is a stain on Egypt’s reputation.” Ali said his novel is not intended to criticize Qadhafi, but only to critically examine his ideas “through a popular Libyan perspective.”

Another Al-Masry Al-Youm article from today reports that Egypt’s Education Minister Ahmed Zaki Badr recently said teachers would become vulnerable if they were prohibited from beating their students as a disciplinary method. The Egyptian Center for Education Rights released a statement today condemning Badr’s position and warned it could result in five major consequences – most seriously that it could increase violence against children. “The minister has done away with all international pacts on human rights, local laws, and numerous psychological and educational studies that highlight the negative effects of physical pain on children’s behavioral attitudes both in the present and the future,” it said in its official statement.