Egypt's War on Books - The Atlantic - 0 views
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nothing seems to disturb Egypt’s ruling cadres more than the written word. The recent litany of bans and shutdowns, including blocking hundreds of web pages online, illustrates what Cambridge University’s Khaled Fahmy, a prolific historian of the Middle East, called “an alarmist moment of crisis,” one in which Egypt’s authoritarian state of emergency laws have turned something as simple as reading into a dangerous act. “Free press and freedom of information … are essential ingredients of any democratic system. The regime and many segments of society do not see it this way—they see the exact opposite. They see at times of crises we have to have absolute unity,”
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sentenced to five years in jail under a counter-terrorism law for possessing a copy of Karl Marx’s Value, Price and Profit
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Sisi prefers conservative Islamists who he can control over secular dissidents—chiefly writers—who threaten his rule.
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