• Zaky case. Parliament Egypt: "From Sassoli unacceptable interference"
  • Egypt, EU: "We are following the case of Patrick Zaki, checks in progress in Cairo"
  • Patrick George Zaky, activist enrolled at the University of Bologna, arrested in Egypt

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February 15, 2020 The Mansura court, after a hearing that lasted just ten minutes, rejected the request for release from the lawyers of Patrick George Zaky, the student of the University of Bologna arrested on his return to Egypt on charges of subversive propaganda. "The appeal was dismissed," said one of the boy's lawyers Wael Ghaly. As reported by the Egyptian initiative for personal rights (Eipr), an NGO for which Zaky collaborates, representatives of the Embassy of Italy in Egypt and the European Union also attended this morning. The student will now have to wait for the hearing of 22 February on the possible extension of another 15 days of pre-trial detention should an investigation supplement be necessary.

The Egyptian student studying at the University of Bologna was arrested at the Cairo airport on charges of damaging national security, inciting protests and propagating false news. The young man's lawyers had appealed against the 15-day pre-trial detention decided on February 8.

Amnesty: "Even stronger campaign"
"There is disappointment, we had hoped for a different outcome. There were signs that it could go differently: a classroom full of journalists, international and Egyptian, of diplomats, Italians included. But it didn't help." So to Ansa Riccardo Noury, spokesman for Amnesty International Italia. "Now let's start again with an even stronger, more lively campaign", in view of the hearing of 22, in which it will be decided whether to renew the preventive detention of Zaky, to get there "even more determined".