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Custody Over Artworks
A Threat to Freedom of Creation
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10/7/2006
The Egyptian Organization For Human Rights (EOHR) expresses its worries concerning the increasing trend of confiscating and restricting the freedom of creativity by claiming that artworks are contradicting with morals and values. These claims are just a façade to political intentions to confiscate such works.
On the 5th July 2006, 112 members of the Egyptian Parliament issued a statement demanding censoring some scenes from the motion picture "Yacoubian Building" (a film with political overtones) claiming that these scenes hurt Egypt's reputation. The head of the Parliament transferred this statement to the Culture and Media Committee to take the suitable procedures and to form a committee to watch the film and to send its feedback to the Parliament, despite that this film was permitted by the Egyptian Censorship.
EOHR believes that this statement constitutes a drawback for freedom of expression and opinion, which contradicts with Article 47 of the Egyptian Constitution, which permits freedom of expression, and Article 49, which permits freedom of art and literature. This statement also contradicts with Egypt's international obligations, which is binding according to Article 151 of the Constitution, such as the ICCPR which furnished the freedoms of opinion, expression, thought and belief. This attitude makes the Parliament acts as a censorship on art, which is not one of the Parliaments jurisdictions.
The Peoples Assembly should be viewing other issues which fall under its jurisdiction rather than acting as a censorship office. The role of the Parliament is to question the government when it restricts freedom of creativity and art, in stead of attacking these freedoms. Its worth-mentioning that in last June the Egyptian Parliament banned the American film " The Da Vinci Code", and the Minister of Culture ordered to confiscate the novel on which the film is based on baring the same title and written by Dan Brawn.
EOHR reaffirms that putting artworks on trial from a political or a religious perspective is an omen for further political and religious restrictions on human thoughts, especially that politics and religion are always subjected to misinterpretation from those who enforce such restrictions, which are also human.
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