Prosecutors in Mansoura,
Egypt, have scheduled on February 15 a hearing for the appeals
case presented by defense attorneys against the detention of
their client Patrick George Zaky, an Egyptian Bologna university
student and rights activist who has allegedly been tortured
after his arrest in Egypt, in an echo of the Giulio Regeni case.
Egyptian authorities on February 8 decided to detain the
student in pre-trial custody for 15 days.
Zaky's family and his lawyers, who are members of the NGO
Egyptian Initiative for Personal rights (EIPR) said they were
allowed to visit Zaky for less than one minute.
They said that he has been moved to a different police
precinct where detention conditions are "less favorable" but
that he has not been mistreated.
The Egyptian Parliament on Friday called European Parliament
President David Sassoli's call for Zaky's release "unacceptable
interference".
The conference of Italian university deans (CRUI) on Thursday
expressed concern about Zaky's plight.
The conference said it "registers with concern" the news of
the arrest of Zaky, saying he was a fully fledged "member of the
Italian and European university community".
CRUI said it "strongly expresses the hope that Patrick George
Zaky can soon return to dialogue with his colleagues and
teachers and can complete his studies".
The parents of Regeni, the Italian Cambridge doctoral
student tortured to death in Cairo four years ago, on Wednesday
urged "democratic governments" to protect Zaky.
"We are following with attention and concern the arrest in
Cairo of the Egyptian student George Zaky," said Paola and
Claudio Regeni, and their lawyer Alessandra Ballerini, in a
statement.
"Patrick, like Giulio, is a brilliant international student
and holds dear people's inviolable rights.
"Democratic governments should preserve and cultivate the
growth of these committed and studious young people of ours and
should protect their safety in all areas".
Zaky was arrested at Cairo airport on Thursday night and
initially charged with spreading false news and instigating
protests.
He was placed under a two-week detention order and Amnesty
International and his family say he was tortured with electrical
shocks and beatings.
One of his lawyers, Wael Ghaly, told ANSA Wednesday that he
risks life imprisonment for attempting to overthrow the ruling
regime.
Ghaly said that preventive custody, which is renewed every
two weeks, can last for more than two years.
One of Zaky's friends, Amr, told ANSA he had been arrested by
Egyptian security forces and interrogated for 35 hours, when he
was allegedly blindfolded and tied up and suffered sleep
deprivation but not electrical shocks.
Amr, who lives and studies in Berlin, said that he and his
friends feared being spied on by Egyptian security forces even
when they were abroad.
Zaky's parents said their son had been tortured to give up
details about his alleged relations with Regeni.
Bologna University Dean Francesco Ubertini told reporters
that "our goal is to make sure that the attention on the case,
at an Italian level and at a European level, is kept high so as
to get Patrick back as soon as possible".
Minister for Relations with Parliament Federico D'Incà told
Wednesday's question time that "Zaky's disappearance and
detention have aroused great emotion in all of us, evoking, with
a series of initial analogies, the painful and tragic affair of
Giulio Regeni.
"The government will continue to give priority to the Zaky
case, also with reference to his conditions of detention and the
need to ensure a rapid judicial process, in view of a hopefully
prompt release".
European Parliament President David Sassoli on Wednesday
called for Zaky to be immediately released.
Another lawyer representing Zaky has said the postgrad
student is "psychologically destroyed".
Zaky was working on gender studies and human rights at the
University of Bologna and is now being held in a cell at the
Mansoura-2 police station "alongside criminals", Hoda
Nasrallah told ANSA.
He said Zaky had told of torture at the hands of his
investigators.
Nasrallah works with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal
Rights (EIPR).
Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North
Africa Researcher, said in statement that: "We call on the
Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release
Patrick, who is detained solely for his human rights work and
opinions he has expressed on social media."
"They must open an independent investigation into the
torture he has suffered and urgently ensure his protection," he
added.
A piece of street art that
appeared near the Egyptian embassy in Rome overnight shows
Giulio Regeni, the Italian student tortured and murdered in
Cairo in early 2016, comforting Egyptian Bologna university
researcher and activist Patrick Zaky who has been arrested and
some fear may suffer the same fate, after reports he has already
been tortured.
The mural, by street artist Laika, depicts both young men in
prison uniform next to the words freedom in Arabic, with a
speech bubble over Regeni telling Zaky not to worry, "this time
everything will turn out right".
Laika said "this phrase has a double meaning, its serves to
reassure Patrick, but above all to confront the Egyptian
government and the international community with their
responsibilities.
"We can't let what happened to Giulio Regeni and too many
others happen again.
"This time it MUST all go OK.
"I hope that this affair ends well and that Zaky is freed as
soon as possible.
"I also hope that although he is not an Italian citizen, our
country can stand guard over what is happening.
"I'd like this small gesture of mine to be a stimulus for the
media to increase the spotlight on Zaky's case."
Commenting on what he called the arbitrary arrest of gender
studies master degree student Zaky at Cairo Airport Friday on
charges of spreading false news and inciting protests, Philip
Luther, Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa
research director, said: "the arbitrary arrest and torture of
Patrick Zaky represent another example of the systematic
repression by the Egyptian state of those who are considered
opponents and defenders of human rights, a repression that is
reaching ever more flagrant levels day after day.
"We urge upon the Egyptian authorities the immediate and
unconditional release of Patrick, who is being held exclusively
for his work on human rights and his ideas expressed on social
media.
"It is necessary that the authorities carry out an
independent probe into the torture he has suffered and that his
protection is guaranteed in a timely way".
Italy has got the EU to monitor the case of 27-year-old Zaky,
whose lawyer and family say he was tortured with electrical
cables.
The human rights lawyer, Wael Ghally, told Il Fatto
Quotidiano newspaper Sunday that "he was not beaten with sticks
so as not to leave marks of torture".
Zaky has asked for a medical examination to prove that he was
tortured with electrical shocks and beatings, another lawyer in
the case, Hoda Nasrallah, said Tuesday, confirming that the
beating deliberately did not leave traces on his body.
Zaky's family said Tuesday: "we still can't understand the
charges leveled at Patrick, our son has never been a source of
threat or danger for anyone, on the contrary, he has been a
constant source of support and help for many people".
The Italian foreign ministry said Sunday that Foreign
Minister Luigi Di Maio has been following the case "from the
start".
It said Di Maio had asked the EU to set up monitoring of
Zaky's case via its embassies in Cairo.
The spokesman for the European Union External Action service
(EEAS), Peter Stano, said they were aware of Zaky's case and "we
are assessing it with our EU delegation in Cairo, and we will
take adequate action if necessary.
"As soon as we have collected more information we will be
able to say something more concrete".
Amnesty Italia said in response they expected "incisive and
constant action starting with the presence, as requested by
Italy, of EU observers at upcoming hearings, the first of which
is on February 22," according to spokesman Riccardo Noury.
Noury said the EEAS statement was marked by "an excessive
principle of prudence and delay".
The European Parliament caucus of the ruling
anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) called for Zaky's
immediate release and vowed "we will not permit another Regeni
case".
Amnesty said the case reminded them of that of Regeni, a
student from Friuli who was researching the politically
sensitive subject of street sellers' unions, whose leader had
fingered him as a spy to secret services.
Regeni's father said last week that failings in the effort to
get to the bottom of his son's death were not limited to the
Egyptian side.
In particular, he took issue with Italy's failure to recall
its ambassador to Cairo in protest at the lack of cooperation
from the Egyptian authorities.
"There are grey zones both on the side of the Egyptian
government, which is recalcitrant and does not cooperate as it
should, and on the Italian side, which has not yet withdrawn our
ambassador to Cairo," Claudio Regeni told the parliamentary
commission of inquiry into his son's murder.
"We have been calling for the ambassador's withdrawal for
some time".
The mutilated body of the Cambridge researcher into Cairo
street unions was found on the highway to Alexandria on February
3, 2016, a week after he disappeared in the Egyptian capital on
January 25, the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the
uprising that ousted former strongman Hosni Mubarak.
His mother said she had only been able to recognise him "by
the tip of his nose".
Magistrate Giuseppe Pignatone, who was Rome chief prosecutor
at the time of Regeni's killing, said Monday that the Cairo
prosecutor's office hasn't made any progress on the
investigation since December 2017, when Rome named five members
of the Egyptian security apparatus as suspects.
At various stages, Egypt has put out several purported
explanations for his death including a car accident, a gay
lovers' tiff turned ugly and a kidnapping for ransom in which
the alleged gang, criminals but later found innocent of the
Regeni murder, were wiped out after his documents had been
planted at their lair.
Judicial cooperation between Rome and Cairo prosecutors dried
up after the Roman prosecutors placed the five members of the
security apparatus under investigation.
Last month Rome prosecutors Sergio Colaiocco and Michele
Prestipino said that Regeni was caught by a "spider's web" spun
by the Egyptian security services.
"A spider's web was spun around Giulio Regeni by the Egyptian
National Security Service in October (2015) before the
kidnapping and murder," Colaiocco and Prestipino told a
parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Friuli-born
student's death.
"A spider's web in which the (security) apparatus used the
people who were closest to Giulio in Cairo, including his lawyer
flat mate, the street traders union representative and Noura
Whaby, his friend who helped him with translations".
"It was a spider's web that closed in more and more and which
Giulio ended up in the middle of".
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has denied any
official involvement in Regeni's death.
Sisi reiterated to Premier Giuseppe Conte in Cairo last month
that Egypt wants to get to the truth in the case.
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