CAIRO - “I T was time for change,” this statement is uttered by all Egyptians after the January 25 revolt, and many institutions hope to change what is seen as unsuitable in the post-revolution era, including the arts. A statement, signed last week by more than 200 Egyptian artists calling for an end to censorship, was received with mixed reactions. Many agreed that the current concept was redundant, but they differed on whether censorship should be abolished completely or modified. “I certainly feel that censorship in its current form limits my freedom as an artist, particularly when I consider that in 100 years of Egyptian cinema not a single film was produced that criticised an Egyptian president,” said actress Rania Youssef. She explained that censorship pre- vented artists from expressing their opinion in such matters, although it was the right of all artists to express their views freely, within the bounds of good manners and decency.” But while being aware of all this, Youssef said that she was against abolish- ing censorship altogether. “There must be an age classification system. We should punish cinema owners who let adolescents watch adult-only films. Laws must by passed to criminalise this,” Youssef added. Meanwhile, scriptwriter Fayez Ghali is going to organise a conference this week that will be attended by famous Egyptian stars, to determine the final decision on censorship. “After the great January 25 revolution it is high time to abolish censorship and the supervisory committee. It needs to be replaced by a different commission with representatives from all art unions and introduce new controls, to be implement- ed before any kind of artwork is shown,” Ghali told the semi-official daily Al- Messa. “These controls are not supposd to nor- malise the relationship with Israel or encourage sectarianism and indecent films,” Ghali explained. Author Youssra el-Siwi agreed. “Abolishing censorship is unacceptable, but it's necessary to change and regulate its intervention in art,” said El-Siwi, who is also a former president of the TV cen- sorship committee. She added there must be a difference between TV and cinema censorship, since TV was watched at home by millions of families, while the situation in cinemas was obviously not the same. El-Siwi also stressed the need for cen- sorship to limit scenes of violence, mur- der and blood in films, as they affected children and adults. Meanwhile, scriptwriter Bahaa Eddin Ibrahim called for keeping censorship of religious programmes, as it had an impor- tant role in correcting Qur'anic verses, the sayings of Prophet Mohammed and the depiction of historical events. However, Ibrahim said that censorship as a tool of evaluating artistic works had to be abolished. “Artists have the right to show their artistic vision, and only the audience has the right to evaluate the work,” Ibrahim added.
