Writer and novelist Ezzat Elkamhawi described requiring publishers to submit an editable copy of their work as a condition for obtaining a legal deposit number as “preemptive censorship” that exceeds the powers of the General Authority for the National Library and Archives, while Egyptian Publishers Association President Farid Zahran said the crisis was on its way to being resolved.
Cultural and literary circles have been in a state of anger over the past two days after the authority’s Decree No. 198 of 2026 required publishers to submit a full copy of their work in editable and copyable Word format as a condition for obtaining a legal deposit number.
Speaking to Al Manassa, Elkamhawi summarized the danger of the decision in two points: censorship of creativity and the potential for plagiarism.
He explained that, under this decision, the National Library and Archives would be transformed from a body that documents and archives Egyptian creativity and thought into a body that censors authors. The second danger, he said, is placing authors’ intellect and creativity at risk of theft, piracy, and exploitation before a book is published.
“I cannot guarantee the direction this vague text may take, in a way that looks like preemptive censorship over the publishing and creative process, which has been completely illegal since censorship was lifted under President Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat,” Elkamhawy added.
For her part, writer and MP Doha Assy submitted a briefing request to the prime minister and the minister of culture over the decree, telling Al Manassa that she received the news “with great astonishment.” She said she understood the anger among authors, “because as a writer myself, why should I submit my own text before publication in an editable or copyable Word document?”
“Assuming good intentions, this remains dangerous because the text has not yet been published, which is worrying for any writer,” she added.
Elkamhawi denounced the secrecy with which the decision was drafted, saying, “I searched for the original decree and found nothing. Even the Publishers Association’s statement reveals that it did not know the decree had been issued except through complaints from publishers themselves, after they faced difficulties implementing it.”
The author called on “senior government officials, ministers and others, to stop endlessly repeating the phrase Egypt’s soft power, because they are treating it with such harshness,” as he put it.
For his part, Publishers Association President Farid Zahran told Al Manassa that no law requires the National Library and Archives or the ministry to consult the association, noting that the association was surprised by “the new decree through complaints from affected publishers, who said their transactions had been rejected until they complied with the newly introduced conditions.”
He said the crisis was not only about sending a full copy of the work in Word format, “but also about employees asking publishers to write the author’s phone number and national ID number on the book, denying legal deposit numbers to books of fewer than 48 pages, even though 50% of children’s books are under 48 pages, in addition to writing the book’s price, which is an incomprehensible request that has nothing to do with the legal deposit number.”
An explanatory statement raises more questions
After the decree sparked a crisis in cultural circles, the National Library and Archives issued an explanatory statement, saying that depositing a digital copy of a work is not new and has been in effect since 2017 under Decree No. 363 of 2017. The amendment made to Article 3, it said, aimed to support governance, automation, and digital transformation procedures at the National Library and Archives.
The Egyptian Publishers Association criticized the National Library and Archives’ statement, saying it “did not address the fundamental points at the heart of the crisis and the core of publishers’ fears and complaints, and ignored them entirely.”
The association said the National Library and Archives’ statement “did not address the reasons for requiring the publisher to submit a full copy of the work in an editable and copyable Word file.”
It continued, “If this requirement is correct and is indeed being applied, as stated in publishers’ complaints, we ask: Why does the National Library and Archives require this particular open format? What are the legal and professional justifications for that, despite work having continued safely and regularly for nearly 10 years based on submitting files in non-editable PDF format, under Decree No. 363 of 2017, which itself prompted many reservations when it was issued?”
Zahran said the association asked for clarification about the decision in its first statement on the crisis, but the National Library and Archives’ response was ambiguous and did not deny what had been said by its employees. “So we considered the lack of denial a form of acknowledgment, which we denounced in the association’s second statement and considered an infringement on publishing freedom and creative privacy.”
Commenting on the National Library and Archives’ statement, Assy said, “Even if we are digitizing, we must ensure that things are done in a way that does not alarm writers or affect the space for creative freedom that the constitution guarantees to creators.”
She stressed that there can be no infringement on the gains guaranteed by the constitution for creative freedom. “Any decision that comes close to these gains will be unacceptable to me as a writer and then as a representative, and I believe it will be unacceptable to parliament. In the end, as a parliament, we will defend these gains that the constitution granted to Egyptian intellectuals,” she said.
Article 67 of the 2014 Constitution states that “freedom of artistic and literary creativity is guaranteed.”
Elkamhawi considered the 2017 decision to be the first assault carried out by the National Library and Archives, which led to the second assault. He noted that “books are subject to constant amendment until moments before the printing press starts running, and this is the author’s right. For archiving to be sound, the National Library and Archives’ copies must remain post-printing copies, as it is a preservation body that makes works available to researchers, meaning after the printed text has been disclosed to the public, which will in turn become a witness to the content.”
Writers’ migration
The president of the Publishers Association did not deny the risks of keeping the decision in place and its impact on Egypt’s publishing industry. “Of course, publishers and authors in Egypt may become reluctant to publish,” he said.
He noted that “a large number of publishers recently, and for many reasons, were forced to open publishing houses in some Gulf countries. This is very normal when the climate in our country is not suitable. People go abroad. What can we do?”
Elkamhawy said that if the decision is kept in place, he would turn to publishing outside Egypt or “keep what I write until better times. In truth, we are facing encroachment and a climate that does not bode well at all for the future of the publishing process. The future is in the hands of the unknown.”
Asked whether she would resort, as a writer, to publishing outside Egypt as one of the alternative paths some authors are considering if the decision remains in place, Assy said, “No, I have a very strong sense of belonging to Egypt, and I do not like publishing outside my country. But what I can do as a parliamentarian is strive for the decree to come out in a form that reassures all Egyptian writers, so they do not have to resort to publishing houses outside the country.”
The crisis is on its way to a resolution
Although nothing has been issued indicating an end to the crisis, Zahran said there has been a “positive development.” He explained that “after the association’s statements, the matter moved quickly over the past two days, and there have been swift responses. Publishers who went to the National Library and Archives yesterday told us they were not asked for what had been requested in recent days.”
Zahran interpreted this by saying, “There are several possible meanings to what happened: either a decree was actually issued and is now being reversed after the crisis; or there was no decree in the first place, just an idea that was abandoned; or the authority’s employees misunderstood the matter and acted on their own initiative; or there is a decision that is now being discussed and reconsidered. Everything that is happening is ultimately positive.”
