Controversy
The CIBF has been marred in recent years by charges that leftist and Muslim militant authors, works critical of the government, and works featuring passages or topics deemed sexually or culturally controversial have been banned from presentation at the book fair. During the 2000 book fair, Islamist protests against books they deemed offensive erupted into violence. That year, over 2000 members of Muslim student groups protested outside Al-Azhar University, leading to rare public protests against the Egyptian government, violence, 75 arrests and a number of injuries. The students were protesting an Egyptian Ministry of Culture publisher printing and presenting for sale copies of the 1983 novel A Banquet for Seaweed by the Syrian writer Haidar Haidar. Following the protests, two members of the government printing house were also arrested for "disparaging religion" and publishing a work "offensive to public morals".
In following years a number of books presented by foreign publishers have been seized by Egyptian authorities. These have included works by Czech Milan Kundera, Moroccan Mohamed Choukri, Saudi Ibrahim Badi, Lebanese Hanan al-Sheikh, and fellow Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury In 2005, Egyptian police arrested a number of book sellers and activists at the book fair, charging two Egyptian journalists with "disseminating false propaganda against the government" and others for presenting an avowedly socialist work.
The Fair was canceled in January of 2011 due to the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The Fair returned in 2012 and "Nearly all of the new books, seminars, poetry recitals, theatrical shows and performances by different troupes at the Fair, in one way or another, seem to depict and celebrate the Arab Spring and the Egyptians’ revolt."
Read more about this topic: Cairo International Book Fair
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