• Revolts: Egypt revolts against Marshal Al Sisi
  • Repression: The Egyptian regime entrenches itself to abort protests against Al Sisi
  • Egypt: The Lost Generation of Tahrir Square
  • Giulio Regeni.The murder of a young Italian in Cairo remains unsolved

Patrick George Zaki , a young Egyptian enrolled in a postgraduate degree at the University of Granada, is the last researcher to swell the list of academics, activists and intellectuals arrested by the Egyptian regime in the endless campaign of repression suffered by the most populous country in the world Arab. His nightmare, which has dusted off the still unsolved crime of Italian Giulio Regeni four years ago, began on Friday when he landed at Cairo airport for a short vacation with his family.

"He was detained by the National Security at the airport and remained missing for the next 24 hours, " said the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), the NGO in which he worked on gender issues. Last summer Zaki requested a leave to study a master's degree focused on gender studies . The postgraduate course, which I was doing at the Italian University of Bologna, is coordinated by the University of Granada.

"Patrick is a student of an Erasmus Mundus master's degree taught by a consortium of European universities. The program has an economic endowment so that people from non-European countries can study it for two years," explains Adelina Sánchez, a professor at the university Granada and coordinator of the Master's Degree in Women's and Gender Studies (GEMMA). "We receive 500 scholarship applications annually and Patrick is one of 25 beneficiaries. He is an excellent student and very committed to human rights research ."

After passing through the airport, Zaki was sent to some National Security units in the Egyptian capital and later transferred to another unit in Mansura, his hometown located 120 kilometers northeast of Cairo. "During those 24 hours, according to the lawyer who met him at the attorney general's office, he was beaten, subjected to electric shocks, threatened and interrogated for matters related to his work and his activism," the NGO said, citing the same penalties. and abuses that thousands of Egyptians have suffered since the 2013 coup d'etat warned by the current president Abdelfatah in Sisi.

"He had returned for a short vacation. At the airport his belongings were broken and he was seized everything he had. He also suffered physical violence," an Egyptian friend of Zaki tells EL MUNDO who demands anonymity for fear of reprisals. "They investigated and tortured him and then sent him to the prosecutor who decided to keep him in prison for the next 15 days, as they do with everyone ," he adds.

According to local authorities, Zaki was not arrested at the airport but at a checkpoint for a search and seizure order issued last September, one month after he left the country. Among the alleged accusations he faces , are "the spread of rumors and false news to disturb social peace and spread chaos"; "call for unauthorized protests to undermine state authority and the regime's downfall"; "Manage a social media account that threatens the social order and incite violence and terrorist incidents."

A whole string of charges used to persecute the peaceful opposition and crush any dissenting voice since the arrival at Al Sisi Palace, the field marshal who led the raid and imposed a state of terror. Since then, the wild repression has claimed more than 3,000 lives and imprisoned more than 40,000 people. No sector of the dissent has escaped the iron fist: Islamists, leftists, liberals, human rights activists and young revolutionaries appear on the list of victims, among allegations of forced disappearances and torture in police stations and prisons in the Arab country.

"At the NGO, Patrick had worked on issues related to the defense of human rights, gender equality or the rights of minorities," his classmate, Venezuelan Rafael Garrido, tells this newspaper from Bologna. "He was always very attentive to the news of what was happening in Egypt from a human rights and justice perspective. He had also committed himself to other parts of the world and to Italy, participating in a movement against violence against women," he says.

The memory of Giulio Regeni

Zaki's drama has regained the memory of the brutal murder in early 2016 of Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian student tortured to death . His body appeared thrown into a ditch outside Cairo, on the road that connects the capital with the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. Regeni was tortured wildly for four days. He had seven broken ribs and, in addition to receiving punches and kicks, he was electrocuted in the genitals. His body had injuries tipped with a white weapon - presumably a razor - in addition to abrasions and bruises.

As a result of the blows, the young man suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Since then, security forces have denied any involvement but the Italian prosecutor's office considered two years ago that five members of the police and national security had been implicated in his disappearance. Rome has also denounced the lack of collaboration of the Egyptian regime, which has multiplied the repression and the campaign of arrests since the wave of protests that broke out last September in several cities in the country.

The University of Granada has joined the request for immediate release launched by the NGO to which Zaki belonged and plans to hold demonstrations such as those that have already been registered in Bologna, the city to which the Egyptian student had to return this week . "We demand the immediate release of Zaki and the end of the continued harassment and arbitrary detention of human rights professionals, members of civil society and journalists in Egypt," the group claims.

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