Today, Friday, the European Parliament voted on a draft resolution calling on European institutions to take serious steps to stop human rights violations in Egypt, in conjunction with the escalating case of the murder of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in Egypt in 2016.
The text of the decree, issued by a large majority, includes a demand for the release of prisoners of conscience, among them colleague Mahmoud Hussein, who has been detained in Egypt 4 years ago.
He also called for stopping restrictions on the work of civil society organizations and their workers, in addition to setting up a mechanism at the end of next January to monitor and report human rights violations in Egypt.
The e-mail vote was held for precautionary considerations related to the Corona pandemic.
Al-Jazeera correspondent in Brussels, Abdullah Al-Shami, said that the draft resolution was approved by 434 out of 685 European deputies.
He stressed that the decision includes two clauses calling on the Egyptian authorities to cooperate in the case of Giulio Regeni and to hand over the accused to the Italian judiciary.
On Thursday, the European Commission called on the Egyptian authorities to cooperate with the Italian judiciary in the investigations into the killing of the Italian researcher Giulio Regeni.
For its part, the United Nations said that any possible European Union sanctions resolution against Egypt is sovereign.
This came in a press conference held by the spokesperson of the Secretary-General, Stephan Dujarric, via a videoconference with journalists at the permanent headquarters of the International Organization in New York.
Dujarric said that the decisions of the European Union are sovereign, and we do not have to discuss what it may or may not decide, and he stressed that what the Union will do in this regard is up to him.
Italian procedures
In a related context, Italian Parliament Speaker Roberto Fico said that after all the judicial investigations into the murder of citizen and researcher Giulio Regeni, "we should be a more angry country."
Fico confirmed - in an interview with the Italian parliamentary press - that he personally started to move at the European level to highlight human rights violations in Egypt, adding that the European Union must take strict decisions against it, saying that there are other European countries waiting to seize the opportunity to overcome this.
The Italian Speaker of Parliament also stressed the need to activate a dialogue within the institutions of the European Union, to make an important breakthrough in the issue of human rights in Egypt.
It is noteworthy that the Italian prosecution announced last week that it suspects 4 Egyptian security personnel, including an officer with a rank in the General Intelligence, in the case of the disappearance and murder of the student.
Regeni is an Italian researcher who was preparing a study in Egypt on labor movements when he disappeared in Cairo on January 25, 2016, only to find his body nine days later with signs of torture.