Middle East News
Egypt nixes plan to put pyramids on flag
Feb 9, 2010, 8:52 GMT
Cairo - The head of Egypt's upper house of parliament refused to consider a plan to change the country's flag to include the Giza Pyramids, a government daily reported on Tuesday.
Lawmaker Hussein Abdel-Samei had on Monday suggested placing an image of the three pyramids at Giza at the center of Egypt's flag, to replace the current flag's golden eagle holding a shield emblazoned with the words 'Arab Republic of Egypt,' Cairo's al-Gomhuriya newspaper reported.
Shooting down the proposal, Safwat al-Sharif, head of the Shura Council, said that Egypt was not a Pharaonic country, but instead rooted in the Pharaonic, Coptic Christian, and Islamic eras.
Al-Sarif said that Egypt's flag represented its struggle during a period of its history. The Egyptian flag consists of the Pan-Arab red, white and black stripes taken from the flag of the 1916-1918 Arab revolt against Ottoman rule.
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and the Palestinian Authority all use variants of that flag.
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