Author: Reuters

(Refiles to clarify status of government)

CAIRO, July 15 (Reuters) – The former head of the Cairo opera, who was sacked by ousted President Mohamed Mursi’s Islamist government, has been named Egypt’s new culture minister by the country’s new military-backed interim government.

Ines Abdel Dayem was fired as head of the Cairo Opera House by Mursi’s culture minister in May.

Her sacking, along with an Islamist parliamentarian’s call for a ban on ballet, prompted performers and cultural figures to stage a sit-in at the culture ministry lasting several weeks.

Dayem, a French-educated flautist, announced on Monday that she had accepted the post of culture minister in the interim government being set up by Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi.

Beblawi has selected mostly liberals and technocrats for a cabinet to run Egypt under an army-backed road map after the military’s overthrow of Mursi on July 3. (Reporting By Shadia Nasralla and Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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