Egypt Creates the Water Police: Criminalizing Showers, Buckets, and Banana Trees by Presidential Decree


📌 Satirical International Headline

“Egypt Creates the Water Police: Criminalizing Showers, Buckets, and Banana Trees by Presidential Decree”


“The Water Gestapo: Egypt’s 2025 Decree Turning Hygiene and Agriculture into National Security Crimes”

📌 Full English Translation (Publication-Ready)

Republican Decree No. (570) of 2025
On the Establishment of the General Directorate of Water Investigations

The President of the Republic,
After reviewing the Constitution,
And the laws regulating the Ministry of Interior,
And in light of the requirements of public interest,
Has decided the following:

Article (1)

A new department shall be created within the Ministry of Interior under the name “The General Directorate of Water Investigations,” headquartered in the capital. Branches may be established in other governorates by decree of the competent minister.

Article (2): Mandate of the Directorate

The Directorate shall be responsible for:

  1. Monitoring illegal bathing operations in homes and hotels and apprehending violators.
  2. Conducting periodic inspections of mosque ablution areas and taking action against individuals proven to have wasted water.
  3. Confiscating clay jugs and water coolers placed in public streets, and fining their owners.
  4. Arresting gangs involved in stealing Nile or canal water using buckets lowered on ropes at night.
  5. Detecting any unlawful water connections to public pipelines.
  6. Pump Licenses: No water pump may be drilled or operated without a permit from the Ministry of Irrigation and payment of a fee of 100,000 EGP, with mandatory installation of a prepaid commercial water meter.
  7. Unauthorized Agriculture: Planting water-intensive crops such as rice, sugarcane, or bananas is prohibited without prior authorization. Violators shall have their crops confiscated and be referred to criminal prosecution.
  8. Penalties: Anyone violating this decree shall face imprisonment for not less than six months and a fine ranging from 50,000 to 500,000 EGP. Penalties shall be doubled upon repeat offenses.
  9. Enforcement: This decree shall be published in the Official Gazette and shall take effect the day following its publication. All relevant authorities shall implement it accordingly.

Issued at the Presidency of the Republic
25 August 2025
Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of the Republic

📌 Deep International Analysis (For Foreign Readers & Academic Use)

1) What This Satire Is Really About

This text uses a presidential-decree format to create a dystopian scenario where the Egyptian state treats access to water—a basic human right—as a criminal activity.

By mimicking the bureaucratic style of official legislation, the satire reveals the absurdity of hyper-policing daily life under authoritarian rule.

2) Satirical Techniques at Work

A) Bureaucratic Parody

The text imitates the legalistic language of state decrees:

  • Articles
  • Clauses
  • Penalties
  • Execution and publication orders

This gives the satire a “deadpan” tone, making the absurd content appear administratively normal.
This technique closely resembles Orwell’s parody of state decrees in 1984 and Jonathan Swift’s administrative absurdism.

B) Hyper-Regulation as Authoritarian Absurdity

The state criminalizes:

  • Showering
  • Mosque ablution
  • Using water jugs
  • Buckets at night
  • Growing bananas
  • Operating a pump
  • Even agricultural survival

This mirrors real-world tendencies in fragile states that compensate for failure by expanding coercion.

Comparable global cases include:

  • Turkmenistan’s bans on basic behaviors
  • North Korea’s criminalization of everyday acts
  • Some African regimes’ “water policing” during shortages

The satire warns of state overreach under water scarcity.

C) Biopolitics: The State Policing the Body

By regulating bathing, ablution, and household consumption, the regime exerts control over the intimate routines of the human body, a hallmark of:

  • Foucault’s biopolitical theory
  • Modern authoritarian paternalism

Water—life itself—becomes a security file.

D) Criminalization of Poverty

The text exposes how such decrees would disproportionately harm:

  • farmers (crop bans)
  • the poor (bucket “thefts”)
  • mosque visitors
  • families bathing at home

Satire here reveals the injustice of a system that punishes survival.

3) Political Message for International Readers

The core argument dramatized through satire is:

When a state cannot solve structural problems (water crisis, mismanagement, corruption), it criminalizes the victims instead of addressing the causes.

This reflects modern patterns in crisis-stricken states where:

  • scarcity becomes a police matter
  • citizens are treated as suspects
  • security replaces policy

4) Relevance to “Digital Political Satire” (Your Research Theme)

This post is a perfect model within your study:

A) Uses the “Official Decree” format

A prime example of the bureaucratic-satirical genre.

B) Shows “state logic turned inside-out”

A signature of Nadim’s digital style.

C) Exposes real crises through absurd exaggeration

Water scarcity, repression, misgovernance.

D) Bridges Egyptian reality with global authoritarian patterns

Essential for international audiences.

📌 Suggested Subtitle for Journals & Think-Tank Reports

“When Water Becomes a Crime: Bureaucratic Absurdism and Biopolitical Satire in Contemporary Egypt.”


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