Security prevent sale of poetry book by detained activist Ahmed Douma at Cairo International Book Fair

Security personnel prevented the sale of a book of poetry written by imprisoned activist Ahmed Douma during the 52nd Cairo International Book Fair, which closes on Thursday night.

Ahmed Douma, a co-founder of the April 6 Movement and the Kefala Movement who was first arrested in relation to protests in December 2011, is serving a 15-year sentence on charges of “participating in an assembly threatening public peace and assaulting police and Armed Forces personnel.” His book, Curly, consists of poetry Douma wrote during his time in solitary confinement.

The director of Dar al-Maraya publishing house Yehia Fikry told Mada Masr that security personnel from the Interior Ministry’s police department for arts and intellectual property, the National Security Agency and the fair’s security staff visited the publisher’s section on June 30, and asked to review the book.

Meanwhile, the publisher was told to halt sales of the book at the fair until further notice. A police officer visited Dar al-Maraya on day two of the fair to make sure that the book was off the shelves, while another police officer visited later and instructed the publishers to remove all the copies of Curly from display and to store them elsewhere.

Fikry told Mada Masr that it is not unusual for a book’s sales to be halted by security forces. “It happens a lot with us,” he said. “It’s seldom that they come back and say ‘put the book up for sale.’ Otherwise they never respond, which means we are unable to sell the book in shops, despite there being no legal order,” he added. 

Interrupting the book’s sales amounts to targeted personal harassment of Douma, Fikry said, arguing that the book’s content is not insulting or indecent and that Dar al-Maraya had pursued all the standard legal procedures in taking the book through to publication. 

A journalist who reports on the fair who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity said the move is “de-facto censorship,” adding that though it is technically illegal to ban or confiscate books without a court order, the police force’s Department for the Investigation of Artistic Products and Intellectual Property Rights are allowed to inspect and review books use this competency to enact what amounts to a stay on sales without any official documentation. Publishers and booksellers are left with no legal route to pursue if they wish to resume sales. 

Ahmed Douma was first arrested in January 2012 on charges of inciting violence and assaulting police and Armed Forces personnel after security forces clashed with a sit-in outside the Cabinet headquarters in December 2011. He was released in April 2012, and arrested again in December 2013. He was held in remand until February 2015, when he was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of “participating in an assembly threatening public peace and assaulting police and Armed Forces personnel.” The sentence was reduced to 15 years in prison in 2019.