Luxor4u

The Egyptian parliament is examining a draft bill that makes disparaging remarks on the country’s historical figures a jailable offence.

Lawmaker Omar Hamrush, the author of the draft, said that the motion proposes penalties of a maximum five years in prison and a fine of up to 500,000 Egyptian pounds against the offender.

Repeat offenders risk jailing of up to seven years and a fine of 1 million pounds.

“There is insistence from some people on mocking historical personalities and symbols,” Hamrush said in media remarks.

“The controversy resulting from insulting these symbols is dangerous and negatively affects the Egyptian people by spreading depression among them,” he added.

The draft defines historical figures as those deemed as part of the state’s history and official documents.

Researchers conducting scholarly studies are exempted of the proposed penalties.

Speaker of the parliament Ali Abdul Aal has referred Hamrush’s draft to the assembly’s constitutional, media and culture committees to look into it after it was supported by 60 legislators. No specific date has been set yet for a plenary debate in the parliament.

The move comes weeks after well-known Egyptian novelist and researcher Yousuf Zidan triggered a heated debate by harshly criticising the 19th nationalist icon Ahmad Orabi and accusing him of giving Britain the pretext to colonise Egypt for more than 70 years.

Orabi’s descendants have filed a suit against Zidan, accusing him of falsifying history and causing public confusion about their ancestor’s national role.

Months earlier, Zidan, an Arabic Booker winner, called the 12th Sunni ruler Salah Al Deen the “most despicable person in history” and accused him of perpetrating atrocities against members of the Shiite Fatimid dynasty after he ended their rule in Egypt.

Zidan’s critics have accused him of fishing for attention by allegedly ignoring well-established historical facts.

His backers say he deserves praise for re-reading history and raising a new debate on taken-for-granted historical events.

Source: http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/egypt/egy ... -1.2121565

With all these new laws all Egyptians will soon be in jail

Maybe they then can start jail holidays for the tourists Oops I forgot, they have already started that

I'll get the ball rolling....


Lawmaker Omar Hamrush, the author of the draft, is a complete lunatic

Surely he qualifies as an historic figure...in one sense at least

As if they don’t have enough real problems to sort out without creating more stupid rules and regulations.

... so does that mean in the future if Horus pee's me off by locking one of my topics, if I retaught and say ''well **** you Horus,'' I could find myself in the clink?

Dusak wrote: ... so does that mean in the future if Horus pee's me off by locking one of my topics, if I retaught and say ''well **** you Horus,'' I could find myself in the clink?

I would certainly hope so

When enough isn't enough.

All media is controlled. Book publication is 'regulated'. The National Archive is closed to researchers. Academic appointments are 'regulated'. Media jobs are 'regulated'. TV content is regulated and 'difficult' TV performers/interviewers fired. Academic standards are low and a lot lower on a comparative basis than 70 years ago. Egypt was once the intellectual, cultural and artistic capital of the middle east - but a long time ago. There are no, even second class, academic journals or high brow magazines still published in Egypt. The making and screening of films is 'regulated'. Major academic research on Egypt is mainly undertaken, and published, in the west etc. etc.You would think that this would be 'enough'.

Obviously enough is not enough. Soon they might be offering the Stalin Prize to patriotic historians - and imprisoning Nobel Prize Winners.

The direction and force of current political thinking is clear - wonder what the end-point is? How will this improve Egypt or will it just make it easier to 'manage' - for a short time and for select interests?

Debate, controversy and dissent is obviously not seen as a way to discern the truth. Indeed the truth is etched in stone and unchangeable.

An example - would this law mean that criticism/denunciation of, say, Hawass, might attract a 6 year jail sentence. Would the law cover criticism of the current political leadership or of Mubarak? So the political situation is that hardly any of the rich thieves, police torturers and political killers of the past 30 years are other than free but a person who denigrates someone can go to jail for 6 years. Its shows a funny idea on what Egypt's priorities are.

Sisi's on record as saying that everything - religious freedom, democracy, human rights etc. - are secondary, maybe beyond tertiary, to getting the economy on track.

Maybe so. Tough love, unpalatable medicine, may be the way forward......but emasculating society of free thought, constructive criticism and, now, effectively demanding a rewrite of history to align it with the government position, is Orwellian.

Egypt. often behind the times, has, it seems, reached 1984.

Just as well the masses are focused on where their next meal is coming from rather than where the country is heading.