Duped: Egypt’s news for April Fools

The privately-owned daily Youm7 surprised readers with some racy news: Cairo’s first strip club would be opening on Zamalek’s 26 July Street.

It wasn’t true, it was an April Fools joke, and quite obviously so, unless you didn’t read the article closely. The spokesperson that Cairo Scene, a Cairo-based lifestyle and news website, spoke to was named L'Aprile Loof.

“Obviously its cool that other sites picked it up but the idea itself was designed to gauge current Egyptian attitudes on a subject which many still regard as taboo, while having some good old fashioned April fools fun,” said Conor Sheils, a journalist at Cairo Scene.


Youm7, known for its quick and dirty reporting, did not attribute the article to Cairo Scene, instead citing “social media” reports. The article was a close translation of the original, adding that strip clubs are illegal in Egypt for moral and religious reasons.

“When we heard that Youm7 picked up the story, obviously we found it hilarious, but for us it served as proof that we really know what makes Egypt tick,” Sheils said.

Another website, Masr al-Arabiya, ran a story saying that Interim President Adly Mansour said he would remain in office. Other satire in the article was less blatant, claiming a senior source in the presidency said it was “likely” that parliamentary elections would be held on time in order to ensure that electricity and gas crises would be solved, and bread would be distributed for free.

Although it wasn’t an April Fools joke, the satire site Abol Hol news ran a piece saying that that the Interior Ministry would be arresting activists, using hashtags insulting former defense minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, which was picked up by bigger fish than Youm7. Arabic versions of the BBC, Al Jazeera, and Yahoo news all ran stories on the topic.

The website Al-Morakib also ran a prank article saying that the son of King Fouad would be running for president against Sisi, and that Hamdeen Sabbahi would withdraw from the race to support Ahmed Fouad, which obviously didn’t fool anyone.