Egypt's social media users are campaigning to reopen cinemas in the country's southern governorates that have radical views about religion and gender and consider art taboo. The campaign, titled #Eftaho_cinemat_el-Se'eed (#Open_Upper_Egypt's_Cinemas), was launched this week on Facebook and garnered the support and likes of hundreds of users.

The founder of the campaign, Ayat Yassin, said she initiated the campaign after noticing that several cinemas in the Upper Egyptian governorates of Sohag and Assiut had been closed down. Yassin is from Sohag and is a regular visitor to Assiut.

"I thought that after some time they would be reopened. But they did not. So I decided to make this campaign go viral in order to raise awareness about the issue and push government officials to take action," Yassin, 25, told Al-Monitor.

Yassin said many Upper Egyptians are now resorting to traveling to Cairo or Alexandria to go to theaters to watch movies. She said the last time she went to the movies was in Cairo because the only cinema in her hometown, Cinema Opera, was closed and turned into a shopping mall a few years ago.