Why Some Egyptians Opposed Their Own Candidate’s UNESCO Win

After two failed bids for the top job at UNESCO—with diplomat Moushira Khattab’s loss in 2017 and culture minister Farouk Hosny’s in 2009—Egypt finally clinched the post in 2025. On October 6, former tourism and antiquities minister Khaled el-Enany was elected director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization with an overwhelming majority.

El-Enany secured 55 out of 57 votes on UNESCO’s executive board, the highest tally since the agency’s founding in 1945, according to Reuters. He needed only 30.

Cairo hailed the result as a “historic victory for Egyptian diplomacy.” Yet long before the celebrations began, a group of Egyptian archaeologists and intellectuals had been warning UNESCO not to choose him. They accused el-Enany of overseeing the destruction of Islamic and historic sites during his tenure and described his record as “hostile to heritage.”

Such concerns were not new. Since 2016, Egyptian heritage experts have repeatedly appealed to UNESCO over what they describe as systematic demolition of the country’s cultural landmarks. When Cairo put el-Enany forward, critics called on the organization to hold Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s regime accountable and urged member states to reject the nomination.

UNESCO itself has previously cautioned Egypt about its record. In October 2024, the BBC reported that the agency had threatened to move Egypt from the World Heritage List to the list of heritage sites “in danger” because of ongoing demolitions of historic and Islamic monuments.

Protest Statement

Khaled el-Enany’s tenure as Egypt’s minister of antiquities was marked by statements that many archaeologists saw as dismissive of the country’s heritage, as well as accusations that he oversaw the demolition of historic sites and tombs. In interviews, el-Enany was quoted as saying that Egypt was “preserving a few stones,” and that “if we don’t demolish, we won’t build.” In 2021, he remarked that “if we register every building that’s a hundred years old as a monument, we’ll end up registering half of Egypt.”

Such comments fueled mounting anger among heritage experts and intellectuals, who accused him—and the Egyptian regime—of violating UNESCO’s charter by allowing the destruction of cultural landmarks. Activists filed petitions demanding that Cairo be suspended from the organization or treated as a state that destroys its own heritage.

One such petition, submitted on October 25, 2024, and signed by archaeologists, scholars, and civic groups, stated that Egypt must first prove to the world that it can protect its own heritage before seeking to lead UNESCO.

The signatories, part of a coalition known as ‎Safeguard of Historic Cairo's Cemeteries, warned that Egypt’s historic graveyards had faced “four years of systematic destruction,” citing “shocking scenes of shattered domes, Quranic inscriptions, and epitaphs scattered across the ground—once the elegant resting places of generations past.”

Before UNESCO confirmed Khaled el-Enany as its new director-general, a group of Egyptian scholars and historians issued another appeal urging member states not to elect him. They accused the former antiquities minister of damaging Egypt’s cultural heritage, arguing that “one cannot give what one does not have.”

Despite their objections, el-Enany won handily, in what many observers saw as the result of diplomatic bargaining behind closed doors.

The statement drew public attention when Egyptologist and former tourism minister Zahi Hawass criticized it during a television interview on an-Nahar with anchor Lamees Elhadidi on October 7, 2025. Hawass dismissed the petitioners as “a group of bad Egyptians,” saying they had sent a letter to UNESCO’s executive board accusing el-Enany of destroying historic monuments.

Journalist Hafez Mirazi later published the full text of the petition, saying he obtained it from trusted academic and cultural sources. Addressed to the committee responsible for selecting the next UNESCO director-general, the document detailed a list of allegations that painted a grim picture of Egypt’s stewardship of its own antiquities.

Since 2016, the letter said, “heritage professionals have repeatedly alerted UNESCO to violations committed against one of the world’s oldest civilizations—Egypt—under the supervision of Dr. Khaled el-Enany.” It described “years of negligence and destruction that contradict UNESCO’s mission to protect humanity’s shared creativity and heritage.”

The petition questioned how individuals “without real experience in heritage protection” had been appointed to senior administrative roles while qualified experts were sidelined or punished for speaking out.

It accused el-Enany of approving decisions that violated Egypt’s antiquities law, including removing historic sites from the heritage register. The letter also condemned his policy of relocating ancient obelisks and statues from their original settings, including those moved to Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the New Administrative Capital, for what it called “cosmetic and political purposes,” damaging both their structure and their symbolic meaning.

It further claimed that restoration work at Luxor and Karnak temples used cement materials in violation of international standards, defacing the ancient facades of sites that have been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 1979.

The petition also cited reports of weddings and dance events held inside pharaonic temples and ancient monasteries—actions described as “a blatant insult to the sacredness of these places.”

It argued that such practices breached both national law and international conventions, including the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the 1964 Charter of Venice, putting Egypt’s ancient sites at risk of being delisted from UNESCO’s global register.

“Under el-Enany,” the signatories concluded, “heritage preservation has become a political tool to polish the image of the regime rather than to serve culture or humanity. Sacred sites have been turned into mere backdrops for state celebrations. Can those who use churches and monasteries as instruments of propaganda be trusted to lead UNESCO?”

El-Enany Crimes

After el-Enany’s victory was announced, many Egyptian intellectuals mourned what they called the “death sentence” for the country’s remaining Islamic and historic sites. They predicted that the new UNESCO chief would bury the dozens of complaints previously filed against him and the Egyptian regime for destroying cultural landmarks.

Dalia Elsharkawy, a professor at Helwan University’s Faculty of Applied Arts, voiced her frustration on social media. “Let’s wait for more demolitions, now with UNESCO’s blessing,” she wrote, referring to el-Enany’s record of approving the destruction of several heritage sites.

Egyptian archaeologist Tarek Farag accused the new UNESCO director-general, Khaled el-Enany, of removing large numbers of monuments from the national heritage register, a move he said paved the way for their demolition, particularly Islamic sites.

Farag also claimed that the largest wave of antiquities smuggling in recent memory took place under his watch, adding that el-Anany had even overseen the dismantling of an entire tomb in Sohag and its relocation to the New Administrative Capital.

Heritage researcher Mohamed Shafaay mocked what he called “the achievements of Dr. Khaled el-Enany,” sharing images on social media that showed the destruction of historic Islamic sites and monuments in Old Cairo during el-Enany’s tenure as minister of antiquities.

In a Facebook post, Shafaay described el-Enany as “one of the most controversial figures ever to lead the Ministry of Antiquities,” arguing that his “negative achievements” had left a deeper mark than any of his predecessors’.

Two phrases came to define el-Enany’s time in office whenever a monument was torn down: “not registered as an antiquity” and “removed from the heritage list.” Shafaay added that the minister consistently failed to intervene to protect endangered sites.

The heritage researcher listed what he called el-Enany’s “major negative milestones” as minister, including the demolition of the historic cemeteries of the Mamluk Desert to make way for the Gihan El-Sadat Axis. The area contained the graves of prominent historical figures such as Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyed, Abboud Pasha, and the ornate façade of Princess Nazli Hanim’s mausoleum, the granddaughter of Muhammad Ali Pasha.

He also pointed to the excavation and partial destruction of Imam al-Shafi‘i’s cemetery, which has been under threat since 2021 as new roads were cut through the historic burial grounds.

Egyptian writer and heritage scholar Galila el-Kadi also criticized el-Enany’s election, questioning what real benefit it could bring to Egypt.

“What exactly will this position do for us?” she asked. “Will the man who helped destroy Egypt’s heritage as minister now use his new role to protect what’s left of it?”

Human rights lawyer Nasser Amin publicly urged UNESCO member states to reject el-Enany’s nomination, arguing that Egypt had failed to protect its own heritage.

“If Egypt can’t preserve its own heritage, how can it preserve the world’s?” he said. Amin accused the Egyptian nominee of remaining silent “in the face of crimes committed against our cultural heritage.”

Anchor Lamees Elhadidi took to Facebook to voice her concerns, asking, “What will we say to UNESCO about this destruction when the man in charge has already listed all of historic Cairo as a World Heritage site, while we are nominating him as Egypt’s candidate for director-general?”

She also shared a copy of a decision by the Ministry of Housing dated September 16, 2024, which removed ten historic cemeteries with distinctive architectural value from protection. Elhadidi voiced outrage that the ministry, not heritage experts, was charged with assessing the historical significance of these sites.

Although the destruction of many of Egypt’s historic sites, particularly Islamic monuments, is largely attributed to the Egyptian regime under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the military’s Engineering Authority, which oversees construction projects replacing these landmarks, Khaled el-Enany remained silent.

As minister of antiquities, he did not object to the demolitions and dismissed repeated appeals from intellectuals urging him to review and protect each site. In 2021, he famously remarked, “If we register every building over 100 years old as a monument, we’ll end up registering half the country’s houses.”

When Egyptian authorities carried out demolitions in September 2023, UNESCO criticized the move. Bab Masr reported at the time, citing a knowledgeable source, that a UNESCO committee had refused to comply with the Egyptian regime’s request during a meeting in Saudi Arabia.

The request aimed to reduce the boundaries of Old Cairo, which is listed as a protected World Heritage site because it is recognized as a “historic area.”

Since 2020, Old Cairo and historic districts of the city have witnessed repeated demolitions carried out under the guise of road construction projects, destroying numerous cultural and historical landmarks and posing a serious threat to Egypt’s Islamic heritage.

Egyptian military construction companies reportedly carried out at least four bulldozer-led campaigns to demolish historic Islamic cemeteries in Old Cairo, citing the need for new roads and bridges. Experts argued that the cemeteries neither obstructed the projects nor could have been preserved with minor adjustments.

El-Enany, in his bid for UNESCO’s leadership, emphasized tackling bureaucracy within the organization and proposed various strategies to diversify its funding sources. These included exploring media partnerships, cultural events, and fundraising campaigns.

Yet Bab Masr, a heritage-focused outlet, noted on June 24, 2025, that el-Enany’s platform lacked clear prioritization. His proposals seemed to cover nearly every aspect of UNESCO’s work, making them appear more like a summary of existing activities than a roadmap for meaningful change.

Critics observed that his program leaned heavily on “continuity” rather than “transformation,” repeatedly using phrases like “UNESCO will continue” or “UNESCO will remain stable.” The implication was that he supported maintaining the organization’s current role instead of introducing bold reforms to address growing criticism of its bureaucratic handling of global challenges.

El-Enany’s election came at a moment of significant uncertainty for UNESCO. Founded after World War II to promote peace through international cooperation in education, science, and culture, the organization has faced a period of deep reassessment amid accusations of politicization and a declining role as an independent cultural and scientific authority.

In recent years, the Israeli Occupation left UNESCO in 2017 over claims of bias regarding heritage destruction in Occupied Jerusalem. Nicaragua withdrew in May 2025 after the organization awarded a prize to an opposition newspaper. In July 2025, the United States announced its official withdrawal, halting funding set to take effect at the end of 2026. Washington accused UNESCO of bias against “Israel,” promoting “divisive social and cultural agendas,” and supporting a “globalist ideological roadmap” at odds with its “America First” policy.

The U.S. exit deprives UNESCO of a substantial portion of its budget, as Washington provides roughly eight percent of the organization’s funding. El-Enany pledged to work toward restoring American participation in the organization.