No not an April Fool’s
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.”
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.
