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Like a pharaoh, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi hovered over water. Salutierend stood at bow of his boat, while five trumpeters with golden head-dress accompanied his grand voyage acoustically from country. The scene occurred on occasion of celebration of expansion of Suez Canal in 2015. Like n, Egypt’s president likes to stage himself as a royal ruler.
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The new Suez Canal is one of costly megaprojects that Sissi made when he took office in 2014. The construction projects say a lot about ruler of Egypt and his relationship with people, which plunged Mubarak regime in Arab Spring in 2011. For while withdrawn president loses to prestige projects in order to attract foreign capital in a distant future, Egyptians have quite different, rar real problems and worries. Most of m live in poverty, y are not allowed to express ir opinion freely and no longer organize mselves politically. Of freedom and democracy that y demanded in 2011, Egypt is farr away than ever before.
Under pretext of stability and security, after his military coup against freely elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, Sissi had his political opponents rigorously pursued. All those who can be dangerous to his power, he keeps at bay with terrorist laws. The laws restrict freedom of press, suppress civil society and allow arbitrary arrests for an unlimited period of time.
Priceless: bread, water, medicine, rent, school attendance
They mainly meet protagonists of revolution, Egypt’s much acclaimed youth activists. Because y protested against new dictatorship, y were imprisoned in bulk. More than 60,000 political prisoners are to be found in Egypt, many of m have been tortured in custody or have disappeared. From generation protest of 2011, under Sissi was generation prison, as Amnesty International has called it since 2015.
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But also politically inactive Egyptians and Egyptians are in a desperate position in fourth year of Sissi’s term of office. One third of population cannot afford most basic things – bread, water, medicines, education or rent. In Egypt, largest country in Arab world with approximately 97 million inhabitants, according to official figures, more than 30 million people live below poverty line.
The capital city of Cairo is bursting with all seams. There are already over 20 million people living re, and number is rapidly increasing. Because of lack of space, people simply build ir barracks on old houses; They relate to whole family house hallways or live in mausoleums of cemeteries. Entire cemetery cities have thus emerged in last decades.
Due to its high population density and poor infrastructure, Cairo is one of dirtiest cities in world. But instead of investing money in ailing and bursting capital, Sissi prefers to build a new capital city in middle of desert for many billions of euros.
For a long time he will not be able to get out of way of enormous demographic pressure. In last 30 years, Egypt’s population has doubled, by 2050 it should have tripled to 150 million. People need food, housing, energy, medical care and work. But economy is barely growing. Unemployment is now high; More than 30 percent of young Egyptians and Egyptians do not work according to International Labour Organisation (ILO). But state does not give m a better chance: public spending on education is stagnating.
