Date of 1st day in prison: 07/02/2020 Released: Yes Restrictions: None |
Patrick George Zaki is a gender and human rights researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). Since August 2019, he has been on leave from EIPR to undertake a graduate programme at the University of Bologna in Italy. He could finally graduate after receiving the presidential pardon and flying to Italy to receive his diploma in July 2023.
Early in the morning on 7 February 2020, he was stopped at Cairo airport while travelling back from Italy for a brief family visit. He subsequently disappeared for 24 hours, during which time his lawyers say that he was beaten, electrocuted, verbally abused, threatened with rape and questioned about his work. He appeared before the prosecution the following day, where he was handed a 15-day pre-trial detention order. He was accused of several charges, including publishing fake news, inciting protests, calling for the state to be overthrown, managing a social media account that aims to undermine social order and public safety, and inciting violence and terrorist crimes. According to his lawyers, the arrest report states that he was arrested at a checkpoint in his hometown following an arrest warrant dating from September 2019 when he was really arrested at the airport.
For seven weeks between March and May, Patrick’s pre-trial detention renewal hearings were continuously postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19. His detention in Egypt’s unsanitary prisons during the pandemic was particularly concerning as he suffers from asthma.
On 14 April 2021, Italy’s Senate voted to grant Patrick Zaki the Italian citizenship. The motion followed a petition signed by 200,000 Italian citizens calling on the Italian government for his release and to grant him the citizenship.
On 13 September 2021, Patrick was referred to the Mansoura II State Security Misdemeanors (Emergency) Court for his first trial hearing. The hearing was postponed to 28 September upon his lawyers’ request, to consult the case files. The charges against him were “spreading false news inside and outside of the country”, based on an article he had published in 2019, titled “Displacement, killing and constraintment: The toll of a week for Egypt’s Copts.”
On 7 December 2021, the judge ordered his release, and he was freed the next day, with his sentence hearing scheduled for February 2022. His hearing kept being postponed until 18 July 2023, when he was sentenced to three years in prison by the Emergency State Security Misdemeanors Court and was immediately taken into custody. On the next day, he received presidential pardon and was released on 20 July 2023.