Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said today that “the human rights file is a top priority for the Egyptian state.”
This came during a speech he delivered while launching a national project called the National Project for Developing the Egyptian Family, aiming to control the rapid population growth rates. The event was held in the Administrative Capital, east of Cairo.
The state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper quoted Al-Sisi as saying: “The concept of human rights as I understand it is to provide food, clothing and good education for every Egyptian.”
“People left Egypt in 2011 [the January revolution] because they were unhappy due to the lack of a good school or good education, and they entered into a conflict with the state.”
“I repeat that I seek to preserve the entity of the Egyptian state and not to slide into the abyss, and therefore the citizen should be aware of the magnitude of the challenges (..) The human rights file is a top priority of the Egyptian state,” he continued.
Egypt faces local and international criticism regarding its human rights situation, but the government repeatedly asserts that economic and development rights, which are concerned with their development, lie at the heart of human rights as well.
The National Project for Developing the Egyptian Family aims to reduce birth rates and encourage smaller family sizes after the country’s population hit 103 million last week.
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