UK MPs Dig Up Decade-Old Tweets, Ignore Current UK Complicity
UK MPs are reportedly attempting to strip Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a prominent rights activist and writer who endured years of imprisonment in Egypt, of his British citizenship over tweets from a decade ago. (One might call that 'digging for dirt'.) This theatrical display of moral indignation conveniently sidesteps the UK's own cozy relationship with regimes accused of human rights abuses, including
the Egyptian government, from whom the UK has previously purchased arms. (£199 million in military equipment to Egypt since 2015, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade). While MPs are busy policing old social media posts, they seem less concerned with their government's active arms trade, or for that matter, the devastating impact of its foreign policy decisions. The outrage machine
conveniently swivels to a persecuted dissident rather than the official channels that facilitate oppression. It's almost as if some histories are more 'dig-up-able' than others when a distraction is needed.