President Abdel Fattah El Sisi told German newspaper Die Welt that security should not come at the expense of freedom, even in a country that lives in difficult conditions like Egypt, denying the imprisonment of any person in Egypt because of his political views.
Sisi said, in an interview with the widespread Die Welt on Saturday, that criticism is allowed for everyone, but it must be "constructive criticism and not incitement," stressing that stability is very important, especially in a country like Egypt with a population of 100 million people and youth constitute more than 60% of it.
"We want a constitutional state, but the incitement to a coup d'état is dangerous and unacceptable," he said.
Sisi pointed out that "security should not come at the expense of freedom, even in a country that suffers from difficult conditions like ours. "Egypt is far from that."
He added that no less than a million young men and women in Egypt enter the labor market every year, asserting that these jobs can only be created if the security situation stabilizes, otherwise chaos will spread, as is the case in other countries in the region.
The Egyptian president noted that jobs can only be created if Europe helps us build industries, even if it competes with its own industries, adding that Europe cannot receive every illegal immigrant.
Moreover, Sisi affirmed that since September 2016, "we have been able to prevent illegal immigrants from entering Europe from Egypt, and it was important for us that the security of Europe was not affected as a result."
"We can only stop this illegal migration through Egypt by creating an appropriate climate for security and stability."
He added that "We do not demand anything in return from Europe. We do not even think of using it for political or economic blackmail."
"At the same time, we have six million refugees in Egypt, including 500,000 refugees from Syria, in addition to a large number of Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Ethiopia and other African countries, and many of them see Egypt as a transit country only, but we will not allow them to go forward," the president added.
Sisi manifested that, "Refugees in Egypt are guests and receive the same treatment as Egyptians (...) We offer them what we can, even anti-coronavirus vaccines, and we do not have any refugee camps in Egypt."
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