Patrick Zaki
, the Egyptian student of the University of Bologna in prison in Egypt since February 2020,
turns 30 today
.
It is the second birthday that the researcher and human rights activist spends in a cell.
The activists of the 'Patrick Libero' network, friends and family, wish him happy birthday and claim his innocence: "What is needed - they ask - to let him go? We have proven a hundred times that he is innocent. He has already spent a year and four months in prison ".
"We ask the government to apply the unanimous recommendation of Parliament and give it
citizenship
".
So the secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta on Twitter.
Even the president of Emilia-Romagna, Stefano Bonaccini, on social media stresses that the detention of Zaki is "unacceptable" and therefore "we continue to strongly ask for his release and the conferral of Italian citizenship. We want Patrick to return to study here in Bologna ".
"
Our voice will continue to be heard
until we know that you are welcomed back into our community and able to live hope in the future. "This is a passage from the message that Francesco Ubertini, rector of the University of Bologna, addresses to Patrick George Zaki, a student of the university in prison in Egypt for over a year, on the day of the Egyptian activist's thirtieth birthday. "There are numerous events, in Bologna and throughout our country, which in these days want to keep attention on your state of unjust imprisonment and deprivation of that inalienable good which is freedom ", Ubertini underlines. An" incessant mobilization ", recalls the rector, which is not only linked to today's anniversary but which has been alive since February 7, 2020, the date of his arrest." we never stopped hoping, not even for a day,in your release, and to think of you with empathy, a sense of closeness and anxiously awaiting a positive turnaround. Being with you today - continues Ubertini - and remembering that you reach the milestone of your thirty years is nevertheless important because it allows us to think of you not only as a student, as a resolute supporter of the freedom of critical thinking, unjustly detained in the lack of respect for rights. human beings, but also and above all as a man, accompanied and supported, up to a year and a half ago, like all of us, by hopes, projects, expectations, dreams. The fact that the course of your vital energy and growth has been suspended with unprecedented violence and unacceptable overwhelm is what hurts us the most. But it is also what pushes us to continue, with unchanged tenacity, the battle for your liberation ".
Bologna
, which together with other Italian cities conferred honorary citizenship on him, today inaugurates the exhibition 'Patrick heritage of humanity' in Porta Saragozza, a kilometer and a half of banners created by the cartoonist and activist Gianluca Costantini, dedicated to the stories of prisoners of conscience deprived of liberty in 13 different countries. The initiative is organized by 6000 Sardine, Amnesty International Italia, the Municipality of Bologna, the University of Bologna and the Archdiocese of Bologna, in partnership with Coop Alleanza 3.0 and Station to Station, the association that has collected over 260,000 signatures on Change. org to apply for Italian citizenship for Patrick Zaki.