CAIRO — June 12 marks the one-week anniversary of an ongoing sit-in by prominent Egyptian writers, filmmakers, performers and intellectuals seeking the removal of Minister of Culture Alaa Abdel-Aziz. They broke into the ministry building on June 5 to protest what they see as efforts to “Ikhwanize” the arts.
While the sit-in and accompanying protests in front of the ministry have been peaceful, with artistic performances every evening, the arrival of pro-Islamist counterdemonstrators in the late afternoon of June 11 led to minor skirmishes. Al-Ahram Online reported that the pro-Islamists, some from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya’s Building and Development Party, chanted, “Clean up [the ministry], clean up, minister.”