Egypt repressing youths: UN report
AFP
CAIRO- Egypt's youths are being repressed by the government which is preventing them from taking part in political life, the United Nations said in a report on Sunday.
"There should be a margin of freedoms and less censorship," said the 2010 UN Human Development Report on Egypt.
"Bloggers should not be arrested in order to help young people take part in public life," it said, only days after thousands protested in Alexandria against the alleged killing by police of a young Internet user.
A woman looks at a Facebook page showing a picture of Khaled Said.
The report focused on Egyptian youths aged 18-29, saying they represented 22 percent of Egypt's overall population of about 80 million people.
It said Egypt should improve and make education more accessible for its youths, especially for low-income people and girls in poor families, saying that 80-82 percent of them have no access to education whatsoever.
Egypt has been swept by protests in recent weeks following the death of 28-year-old Khaled Said.
According to witnesses, Said was killed on June 6 when plainclothes policemen dragged him out of an Internet cafe and beat him to death on a busy Alexandria street.
But authorities say an autopsy showed he did of asphyxiation.
Said has become the latest symbol of police brutality among tech-savvy Egyptian activists, many of them young people.
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