Egyptian Culture Minister Shaker Abdel Hamid said news circulating that the Egyptian Artists Syndicate is boycotting Tunisian artists is groundless.
The minister told his Tunisian counterpart, Mahdi Mabrouk, in a phone call that the syndicates referred to in the media, if any, are small in size and do not represent a wide portion of Egyptian artists.
A statement by the Tunisian Ministry of Culture Thursday regarding the content of the phone call said that the Egyptian minister stressed the intensity and depth of Egyptian-Tunisian cultural relations, especially after the Arab revolutions that started in Tunisia.
Abdel Hamid accepted the Tunisian Minister’s invitation to visit Tunisia on the sidelines of the Publishers Union conference soon held in Tunisia.
Mabrouk banned Egyptian singers Tamer Hosny and Shereen Abdel Wahab from singing in the Kertaj festival in Tunisia early this month, arguing that the decision was based on selecting the right character of the participants. The decision raised controversy in Egyptian art circles.
