New Egypt law could fine $181,000 for publishing false weather reports

The Egyptian parliament has approved a draft law which will fine people up to five million Egyptian pounds ($181,600) for publishing false information about the weather.

The fine will be imposed on anyone who publishes incorrect information on social media, issues meteorological data, bulletins, or studies and attributes them to the Egyptian Meteorological Authority (EMA.)

The draft law is designed to regulate the EMA, a government body responsible for weather forecasting in the country.

Member of the Tourism and Civil Aviation Committee which approved the draft law, Emad Al-Dargali, said that it was necessary to “address false news about meteorology that may cause harm to the national economy,” reports Egypt Independent.

“Dargali noted there are pages on social media and news sites that publish inaccurate news about the weather, as well as spread rumours about economic issues.”

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Egypt is suffering a severe economic crisis marked by accelerating inflation and the devaluation of the pound.

Analysts have said that the global coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and widespread corruption are at the heart of the mounting crisis, not the weather.

Nevertheless, the Egyptian cabinet submitted the draft law on false weather to the House of Representatives for approval in January.

The bill set out to punish anyone who talked about “meteorology, or anyone using a weather forecasting device without our consent, or anyone who raises confusion about the weather.”

Ahmed Abdel-Al, former head of the EMA, recently said that non-specialists have published “inaccurate news about the weather, causing confusion and spreading rumours among citizens.”

In 2018 then chairman of the EMA Abdel-Al, announced he was preparing the draft law to ban unauthorised forecasts.

At that time social media posts mocked the EMA for their predictions over a sandstorm that was set to hit the country and one meteorological expert at the EMA told Al-Monitor that this was the kind of unauthorised weather forecast it was aiming to avoid.

As well as social media, the Environment and Water Resources and Irrigation Ministries also release their own forecasts, which “leads to uncertainty and makes it harder to hold the responsible authority accountable,” according to the EMA.

The introduction of the legislation was considered part of the government’s wide-reaching crackdown on free speech and an attempt to control the narrative.

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That same year Egypt introduced a law criminalising the spread of false news by anyone with a large social media following.

Under the legislation, anyone with over 5,000 followers on Twitter, Facebook, or another networking site was to be treated as a media outlet and subject to prosecution for spreading false news and incitement to break the law.

The bill also banned the establishment of websites without a licence from the Supreme Council.

In 2018, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that Egypt was jailing more journalists on “false news” charges than anywhere in the world.

Throughout periods of extreme weather, like flooding, authorities are often blamed for the poor infrastructure and a failure to invest in the country.

Experts have long warned that Egypt needs to do more to counter the effects of climate change, in particular rising temperatures and the sea level.

In 2015 Egypt’s Interior Ministry claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood had caused flooding in Alexandria by blocking the drains with cement.

The Interior Ministry announced that it had arrested 17 members of the organisation and accused them of the floods and also blocking sewage pipes, damaging electricity transformers and rubbish containers.