Amid army crackdown, Egypt’s richest library set on fire

Al Masry Al Youm:


Photographed by other

A fire that engulfed the building of the historic Egyptian Scientific Institute on Saturday morning has been extinguished. The extent of the damage has not yet been determined.

The fire started on the lower floors of the building, which is on Qasr al-Aini Street in central Cairo, but later reached the higher floors. The firemen, who arrived very late at the site, could not initially control the fire.

State news agency MENA said that firemen eventually managed to control it, but state TV reported that the fire damaged the whole building and all of its collections.

The building is adjacent to the Shura Council building, and both MENA and state TV accused protestors of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the institute.

Eyewitnesses were reported to have seen protestors throwing a Molotov cocktail at stone-throwing soldiers at the Shura Council building, but the projectile missed the intended target and instead landed in the Egyptian Scientific Institute.

The website of Youm7 newspaper alleged that a protestor was set on fire after trying to set the building on fire. No other source confirmed this news.

The institute is considered the oldest scientific institute in Egypt. It was established as L’Institute d’Egypte in August 1798 by Napoleon Bonaparte during the French invasion of Egypt. Its mission is to advance high quality research in various fields, ranging from biology and mathematics to fine arts and archaeology. Its library contains more than 200,000 books, including the original volumes of the “Description de l’Égypte” (Description of Egypt), begun in 1798 by French scientists in Egypt.

Professor Mahmoud al-Shernoby, the president of the institute, told state TV in a phone interview that the damage is a “great loss” to Egypt and that those “who caused this disaster showed be punished.”

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

7 Replies to “Amid army crackdown, Egypt’s richest library set on fire”

  1. These people are worse than Negro eating cannibals. Tell me who is worse the cannibals of the Congo or these people. These people are destroyers of knowledge. Precious knowledge. People are billions in number but knowledge is a scarce commodity for the inbred arabs and their persian and paki followers.

  2. Will this happen in the UK once Muslims are a majority. Will the greatest museums, such as the British Museum, be torched?

  3. These islamic creeps just rewrite history anyway, according to their pedophile prophet the pig, in his name, mo ham (as in pig ham) mad, (as is f.ing crazy mad)

    and their cult leader ali ak bar

    the world according to nethanderthal princes of saudi oil and Fairmont holdings that now owns all of Canadas historic resorts

  4. Unbelievable.
    The destruction of the Institute’s contents is disgusting and a tragic loss not just for Egypt, but a huge loss for the world as well……So much history destroyed.
    The loss of 200,000 books, alone, is criminal.
    Those responsible are out of control animals.

    • The words, ‘Savages’ and ‘barbarians’ have meaning again. They are to be contrasted with, ‘civilized’ and ‘cooperative’ and even perhaps, ‘domesticated’. No matter what Justin Trudeau says, anti-civilization acts, such as burning down a library, blowing up massive ancient public works projects such as the stone Buddha and far too many similar and dissimilar actions, mostly by Muslims to list here are barbarous and savage acts. (Trudeau objected to referring to FGM as savage. I suggest he get castrated while concious with a rusty blade by an old untrained Muslim Perv from Somalia and tell us all that again)

  5. It was a Moslem leader that said if the books agree with the Koran they are not needed, if they disagree with the Koran they are blasphemy, in either case let them burn. The knowledge destroyed disagreed with the Koran and thus had to be destroyed.

    Religious wars only happen during Dark Ages, welcome to the new Dark Age.