New controls announced by the former director of the National Center for Translation regarding translated books lagged deep wounds in the body of Egyptian culture, and again drew attention to the decline of books translated into Arabic in Egypt, whether through the Ministry of Culture or private publishing houses.

The most prominent new regulations announced by the Director of the Translation Center, who left after the uproar of controls, Ola Adel, indicated the necessity that "the translated book does not conflict with religions, social values, morals and norms."

Although the center’s management removed the controls ’statement and a subsequent explanatory one, these two statements revealed what was silent in this case, and what is known from publication and translation necessarily, as these controls are red lines that are rarely crossed, even among the owners of private publishing houses. In the interest of them to continue the activities of their role, in addition to the stated conditions, the condition not to mention the policy.

A source inside the National Center for Translation revealed to local newspapers that the former director of the center criticized the addresses of some of the books on the publishing lists, and that she had resorted to the audience of the center's Facebook page to participate in determining the titles required for translation and the quality and size of the books required, and accordingly issued a list of new announced controls.

In the controversial statement removed from the center's Facebook page, Ola Adel announced that a number of conditions must be observed, including that a translation of the book should not have been previously issued, that the work offered for translation should be from the original language and not through an intermediate language, and that the pages of the book range from 60 to 500 Page, with the possibility of excluding this condition if the book is part of the heritage books or in the case of translation of encyclopedias and dictionaries.

Translators criticized those declared controls and others that are not announced, which restrict the movement of translation and publishing, stressing that these conditions and precautions have a great impact on the decline of the translation and publishing movement, despite the readers ’interest in Egypt for translated books, especially literary ones.

An explanatory statement for the first statement by the former director of the center - removed from the center’s page - stated that the center received proposals for books containing insulting to religious symbols and institutions without there being any real thought presented. Indeed, there are some works that promote homosexuality, perversion and atheism, which “we do not accept Putting the center's name on it. "

Publishers fear a mysterious fate after one of them is imprisoned after publishing books as a translator (Al-Jazeera)

The explanatory statement continued, "The ideas that are not in line with our convictions but do not include offense or insults, we do not impose a stone on them, but rather we present them in our publication that aims to enlightenment and introduce the culture and thought of the other, but we also hope that thinkers read them urging them to respond to the misconceptions in their writings."

Translators, who refused to mention their names, confirmed to Al-Jazeera Net that this director - who worked as a translator at the Presidency of the Republic prior to her presidency of the Center - had only disclosed of an ongoing and known reality in the Egyptian cultural reality.

The Ministry of Culture, through the National Center for Translation - which is the largest publisher of translated books - translated 301 books from mid-2014 to the middle of this year, what the ministry described in a statement of "achievements" for that period as a "boom", although the number is "very modest" compared to translations Books are in countries smaller than Egypt in the region, according to international data.

Among the prohibitions that translators avoid - according to one of them speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, refusing to mention his name - translation from Turkish into Arabic, and although there are "no written instructions in this regard, publishers and translators fear the consequences, for fear of being accused of improving Turkey's image in Egypt, in light of differences between the two regimes." The two countries. "

Some of these declared conditions contradict the essence of the translation process aimed at discovering the other through his words, and what happened six years ago in putting more conditions and caveats, narrowing the window from which we view Egyptians to the world, according to translators.

Sharifa - which is a pseudonym for a translator who spoke to Al Jazeera Net - said that some of these criteria are a "right that is intended as a void", as the regime wants to announce it to appear "conservative" after being accused by its political opponents of having "overlooked its hostility to Islamic movements and anti-Islam itself."

It seems as if publishers feel their necks every time they translate a book into Arabic in Egypt, after the Military Court of Cassation in Egypt late last year upheld a ruling for five years imprisonment for the founder of Tanmia Publishing House Khaled Lotfi on charges of divulging military secrets, for distributing the Arabic version of the book The Israeli "The Angel: Ashraf Marawan", published in 2016.

The book presents the Israeli narration about the personality of former President Anwar Sadat's Secretary General Ashraf Marawan, and he is also the son-in-law of former President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Despite this restriction, books translated into Arabic in Egypt are witnessing a relative turnout of readers, encouraging publishers to translate more, despite these warnings and restrictions.

Al-Halawani, which is a pseudonym for a publisher who refused to be named, says that the Egyptian reciter accepts international novels translated into languages ​​for peoples with different cultures from his own, indicating his keenness as a publisher to avoid all religious and political prohibitions, and even sets additional caveats for himself, while setting up his annual publication plan, pointing out Until the plan for each year focuses on a specific topic that preoccupies the public opinion, such as issues of improving the conditions of women.

The spokesman believed that the director of the translation center transferred to a better job as a commercial attaché in Austria is aware of the state’s orientation and sought to flirt with her through this statement, which revealed what was implicitly known and did not need to be announced, and it was not retracted as was rumored.

Writer Fatima Al-Modoul criticized the statement of the former Director of the Translation Center, stressing that the controls are elastic, in addition to her dealing with translators as employees, and she is required to qualify the directors of the Ministry of Culture's bodies of the nature of their positions before assuming her position.

Al-Modoul confirmed in a post on her Facebook page that the translation center is a "enlightening" center that seeks to introduce the Egyptian reader to the other, and this other must necessarily be different, asking, "Who will define norms and values? And who will determine whether they are good or not?" .

Intellectuals expressed their surprise at the duplication of the regime’s rhetoric, which declares “war” on those with religious orientations and demands “renewal of religious discourse” and at the same time adopts their “approach to thinking and striving to Islamize culture and subject it to moral controls.”