Italy calls on Egypt to release young researcher who was allegedly tortured

ROME — Italy calls on Egypt to release a young Egyptian researcher and activist based at Bologna University, saying it had reason to believe the security forces had tortured him.

The incident has revived painful memories of the 2016 disappearance and murder of an Italian researcher in Cairo, a case for which which the Italian authorities are still seeking answers.

Patrick Zaky, 27, a graduate student at Bologna University in northern Italy, was detained late on Friday as he arrived to visit his family.

He was held on a warrant issued in September after he left to pursue his studies, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a prominent rights organization where he is a researcher.

They say he had been charged with “harming national security” and “broadcasting false news” — and that he had been beaten and electrocuted by security forces.

In a statement today, Peppe De Christofaro, under-secretary for education, expresses “great concern” for Zaky.

He had a “well-founded fear that the young Egyptian researcher… is currently suffering arbitrary and unjustified detention and that he is a new victim of violence and abuse from the Egyptian security forces,” he says.

He calls for other European Union states to join Italy in pressing Egypt to release him.

Everything had to be done to protect Zaky’s safety and “avoid a repetition of unacceptable scenes of torture,” he says.

— AFP