Today Egypt's govt hosted a tour of its notorious Tora prison following a UN report saying conditions were abysmal & medical neglect risked lives of inmates, such as late former president Morsi. Event began with a red carpet ON a red carpet to a tent & then it got absurd - THREAD 
While most of foreign press I spoke to said they weren't invited including major US papers, @AFP reporter @FaridYFarid got to attend & reported to us the details firsthand. He repeatedly requested access to prisoners & was declined. Read his thread
Guests got to watch inmates playing soccer on a manicured field wearing sneakers so white that have clearly seen the grass as often as many prisoners report seeing the sun, which is to say never. For those of you unfamiliar, nothing in Cairo stays that white once used.
AlAkhbar reports on prison dining claiming food came frm prison farm & prisoners followed doctor designed healthy diet...of kofta & soda? Fatty red meat & sugary drinks, neither of which most Egyptians can regularly afford are neither what the doctor ordered nor what inmates eat
The idea that this fruit was sourced from prison is untenable to anyone who's been near it. Apples for example aren't grown in Egypt. They're imported at such a great expense that the former central bank governor used them as an example when listing sources of hard currency usage
The prison hospital guests toured reportedly had a fresh coat of paint and looks cleaner than private hospitals I've visited (perhaps they keep them clean thanks to not allowing prisoners to get medical care in them).
Again the state insists on being absurd in its effort to respond to criticism. Tora is widely reported to have abysmal conditions for many (it has different sections, some much more livable than others). The state shldn't claim it's a haven of upper middle class Egyptian living
Same absurdity is on display each time a vote is held in which no opposition is permitted, no criticism is aired in the press & the president "wins" over 95% of vote. Egyptians increasingly dismiss such electoral theater as a waste of time given that results are known in advance
Such claims are unbelievable and convince everyone the state is lying from the outset. One would think that after 67 years of military authoritarianism the govt would be better at its propaganda and making it remotely convincing, but perhaps being convincing simply isn't the goal
Perhaps today's visit to Tora reminds us that the govt of Egypt has no interest in convincing anyone it's adhering to its legal obligations but rather, in staging an event so absurdly dishonest, it's reminding us of its impunity. That it can lie to our faces & demand we accept it
In true Orwellian fashion the Egyptian state insists to us the equivalent of "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength."
As we learned in Animal Farm (Orwell's allegory of revolution & counterrevolution), "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right."
As we learned in Animal Farm (Orwell's allegory of revolution & counterrevolution), "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right."
