Patrick George Zaky, a 27-year-old Egyptian activist and researcher, enrolled in a master's degree at the University of Bologna, was arrested at Cairo airport on the night between Thursday and Friday. This is confirmed by Amnesty International Italia. The boy, an LGBT rights activist, had returned to Egypt for a visit to his family in Mansoura. Zaky was allegedly accused, according to reports from Amnesty International and the NGO Ecrf, of "spreading false news, inciting protests, attempting to overthrow the regime, using social media to damage national security, propaganda for terrorist groups and use of violence. " According to sources from the Farnesina, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio is following the story carefully through the embassy in Cairo .
Patrick George Zaky, confirmation to ANSA Riccardo Noury, spokesman for Amnesty International, is currently under arrest in Mansoura, his hometown for an arrest warrant issued in 2019 "on which we do not know what is written", he explains . The news came to Amnesty through a network of Egyptian and Italian activists. "Egyptian judicial authorities have confirmed this arrest which was formalized this morning." "There is a period of several hours of which nothing has been known about him - explains Noury - His arrival in Cairo took place on the night between Thursday and Friday" and this morning the news came of the formalization of the arrest. Zaky "dealt with gender identity which was in fact the subject of his master's degree in Bologna". At Alma Mater the researcher was in fact attending the Gemma Master in Gender Studies.
"Let's not underestimate having made this 'noise'" on Patrick George Zaky - continues Noury - is a deterrence for those who think that no one in the world knows what is happening and therefore believes they can treat it as they please, as happened with Giulio "." I know there are also parliamentary questions in sight - adds Noury - Good. We for our part claim to know what is written on the arrest warrant. Based on analogies, if the mandate contains an offense that is nothing more than a legitimate activity of denunciation, information, public comment or criticism, in this case the charge is triggered for the dissemination of false information, of threat to national security, then terrorism would be hallucinating. This would give an alibi to legitimize a completely illegal procedure. "If in the mandate you read charges of indictment that" equate to a legitimate activity, he must be released from prison immediately, they must make it known ".
"We expect a sequence of 15-day detention orders - says Noury - renewable several times, and of course in this situation of prolonged detention, with the excuse of conducting investigations, the risk is that the conditions of detention are comparable to torture, if not torture itself. "