• Zaki case, pressure from Rome on Egypt. Cairo stops: "He is not an Italian citizen"
  • Patrick George Zaky, activist enrolled at the University of Bologna, arrested in Egypt

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10 February 2020 The European External Action Service is "aware" of the case of Patrick George Zaki, the young Egyptian who studies in Italy arrested in Cairo, and is ready to "support" the Italian authorities. The spokesman for the European External Action Service, Peter Stano, said this. "We are aware of this case. We are verifying it with our officials in Cairo," said the spokesman.

"The EU is trying to establish all the facts, and if an initiative is needed the Union will fully support the Italian authorities. We will decide on the basis of the evaluation of the facts what happened," said Stano. "In general - added the spokesman - I can say that the EU follows human rights issues very closely, and we continue to raise them with our Egyptian partners, and as soon as we have enough information we will also raise this".

The lawyer of the Regeni family: "They are the same torturers"
"Patrick was arrested for his studies in Italy. Who knows what paranoia they have built. It was taken by the National Security, the civilian secret service, the same involved in the kidnapping, torture and murder of Giulio, and who has five officers investigated that's why from the Rome prosecutor's office. They interrogated him with methods that, unfortunately, we know well. The torture. And they ask him why he traveled to Italy, why he studied with you and what he did in your country ". So Mohamed Lotfy, lawyer of the Regeni family, in an interview with Repubblica on the case of Patrick Zaky. "Giulio's murder continues to be an unacceptable thorn in the side for our government and, somehow, there are also analogies with Patrick's arrest: they are students in a country where culture is very scary" , says Lotfy.

In Bologna garrison of students for Zaky
A solidarity garrison for Patrick Zaky student at the University of Bologna, arrested Thursday in Cairo, Egypt. After yesterday's mobilization in Piazza Maggiore promoted by Amnesty International, this time it is the students of Alma Mater who organize themselves, in a garrison at 6 pm in Piazza Scaravilli. "We believe that, in the light of this context, it is necessary today that the academic community of the University of Bologna, first of all, and of all the other universities of Italy, unite in order to claim and obtain truth and justice for Zaky" , writes Link, the student collective promoting the initiative. The call for mobilization is open to the entire academic community: researchers, PhD students, teachers and technical and administrative staff. The aim is to ask for the activation of the Foreign Ministry, in order to obtain the immediate release by the Egyptian government of Patrick Zaky, the withdrawal of the Italian ambassadors in Egypt, the interruption by the Italian government of any economic relationship and military with Egypt, the position of the ministry of the University "against this attack on the freedom of research".