Cairo: Egypt’s education authorities have recalled and destroyed thousands of textbooks glorifying the ousted Islamist president Mohammad Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood group, sources said.
“Around half a million textbooks printed for the subject of national education have been withdrawn from schools before they were to be given away to third year students in secondary schools. The books were found to contain mistaken information about the January 25 [2011] revolution and the role of the Brotherhood in it,” an official source at the Education Ministry told Gulf News on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. He was referring to the revolt that forced Hosni Mubarak out of power in February 2011.
The recalled books, according to the source, claimed that the Brotherhood leaders, mainly Mursi and Essam Al Erian, spearheaded the uprising against Mubarak. Mursi and Al Erian were in prison when the revolt erupted, but were released in a mass jailbreak that occurred days later following the collapse of Mubarak’s police force.
Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, was deposed by the army in July this year after widespread street protests against his one-year rule. He is being detained at a secret location pending trial on charges of conspiring with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas against Egypt during the anti-Mubarak revolt and inciting the murder of opposition protesters after becoming president.
“The January 25 revolution is portrayed in the book as if it was led by the Brotherhood in stark distortion of the fact that all Egyptians had participated in the revolution, which was later hijacked by the Brotherhood,” the source said. “The education minister has referred the committee, who had approved the book, to investigations.”
The destroyed copies have cost the public treasury around LE1.2 million (Dh638,925). Some printing shops have offered to print the new version of the book for free to help “ease the financial burden on the government,” the source added.
Egypt’s army-installed government, which took office last month, is launching a campaign to remove officials appointed by the Brotherhood in different state institutions, mainly in ministries of education and religious affairs as well as in municipal councils.
