Egypt, Zaki arrest: another 45 days of pre-trial detention

• Zaki case.

  Unanimous motion of the chamber: the government gives citizenship

• Egypt, another 45 days of pre-trial detention for Patrick Zaki

• Zaki, new hearing on pre-trial detention

• Egypt.

  Senate approves citizenship motion for Zaki with 208 votes

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July 14, 2021 The hearing, two days ago, and the long-awaited verdict that renews, once again, 45 days in custody for Patrick Zaki, the Egyptian student of the Alma Mater University of Bologna detained in Egypt.

This was confirmed by sources of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (Eipr), the Egyptian NGO with which Zaki collaborated.

"Unfortunately, the pre-trial detention was renewed for a further 45 days," wrote Darwish, belonging to the NGO for which Zaki was a researcher in gender studies, without adding other details. A hearing session was held on Monday including that of the Egyptian student and the judges' decision on whether or not to renew the detention, as usual, had not been announced. Informed Egyptian sources had specified that it was not a postponement of the decision but only of its announcement due to a technical-bureaucratic issue (the absence of an official).

The previous hearing that renewed the custody of the researcher and civil rights activist took place on June 1st. The 30-year-old was arrested under controversial circumstances on February 7 last year and faces up to 25 years in prison, according to Amnesty. Pre-trial detention in Egypt can last for two years. The charges against him are based on ten posts from a Facebook account that his lawyers consider fake but which have configured, among other things, the "dissemination of false news, incitement to protest and incitement to violence and terrorist crimes." ".

"I wonder if even in the light of Parliament's second vote last week in favor of Patrick Zaki, the Italian government will continue to use the usual words - caution, silence - or if it will finally take some initiative to express its discontent to the Egyptian authorities for this situation, which is arbitrary, illegal and extremely cruel, "said Riccardo Noury, spokesman for Amnesty International Italia, after the news of the Egyptian court's decision. "An appeal: in this month of August that is approaching, that Patrick will go to prison, we will not abandon him. We do not close everything, we continue to be close to him because he needs all of us", added Noury. "We are close to Patrick, let's not forget him because he needs the support of all and all of us.Every day he passes in this cruel condition is a day of enormous pain for him and for the people he cares about ", he concluded.