Lire la version en français / Lea la versión en español
Are you a brutal dictator short of cash or maybe just looking for a side hustle? Is crushing your critics not having the economic benefit you’d hoped for? Would you like to get paid more for your repression?
The European Union is offering huge piles of cash to authoritarians just like you! We’ve got mountains of money – big notes, small notes, sacks of coins – all to help you strengthen your hold on power and continue your repression for decades to come!
Just pick up the phone and call EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen now! Join the EU’s many satisfied customers, like Egypt’s autocratic leader, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Von der Leyen and friends handed him EUR 7.4 billion yesterday.
And all al-Sisi has to do in return is say the words “comprehensive and strategic partnership” and – most importantly – promise to prevent migrant departures toward Europe.
And Egypt is not alone. Mauritania and Tunisia have also walked away smiling from the EU’s ATM for autocrats. It’s very simple: you promise to stop the migrants, you get the cash.
How are you supposed to stop them? EU leaders don’t care! Do whatever you want! Are you worried about so-called “European values” of democracy and human rights? Well, don’t be!
In Egypt, authorities wrongfully arrest and mistreat migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. They deport them to Eritrea, an even more repressive country. They also reportedly deported Sudanese asylum seekers back to Sudan, where there’s a war raging. None of this stopped the EU handing al-Sisi the money. It’s almost as if mistreatment of migrants is the whole point… Wink, wink.
Plus, if you act now, the EU will throw in at no extra cost to you a free set of silences about other horrific human rights abuses in your dictatorship.
After yesterday, you can bet Brussels won’t be saying much about the al-Sisi regime’s long list of crimes since he took power in a 2013 coup. Massacring protesters, jailing and torturing thousands of critics and opponents, grossly unfair trials, crushed media, the courts an obedient arm of government repression.
So, dictators of the world, what are you waiting for? Billions of euros could be yours! Phone today! The EU is waiting for your call!
I know: it’s not funny. These so-called leaders of Europe are behaving in the most appalling manner. They fear and despise desperate people fleeing war and oppression so much, they are literally paying brutal dictators to abuse them just so the desperate people don’t reach Europe. It’s not funny at all, but their disgusting inhumanity deserves to be mocked.
