Italian lawmakers want citizenship for jailed Egyptian

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ROME (AP) – Italian lawmakers on Wednesday officially called on the government to grant citizenship to an Egyptian student and human rights activist enrolled at an Italian university, who has been imprisoned in Cairo for almost a year and a half.

Egyptian courts have repeatedly extended Patrick Zaki’s prison detention since his incarceration in February 2020 after arriving in his homeland to visit his family. Zaki is enrolled at the University of Bologna and worked as a researcher on gender rights at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

He was jailed pending an investigation into charges of spreading false news and calling for unauthorized protests. Zaki and his lawyer insisted that there was no reason to detain him.

In Rome, the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, voted overwhelmingly to ask Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government to grant Zaki citizenship. The Senate approved the same motion in April.

The motion also urges the government to use its relations with the Egyptian government as well as various international forums to insist that the Egyptian authorities respect the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful demonstration, as well as to end “impunity for human rights” in Egypt.

It was not clear if or when Draghi’s government would respond to Parliament’s call. Making Zaki an Italian citizen could put pressure on Cairo to release him from detention, and draw attention to his plight in Italy, where he hopes to return.

Italy has for years been urging Egypt to identify and prosecute those responsible for the death of a 28-year-old Italian doctoral student, Giulio Regeni, kidnapped in Cairo, tortured and killed in 2016.

In May, a judge in Rome ordered four high-ranking members of the Egyptian security forces to stand trial in the Regeni case. They should be tried in absentia.

While successive Italian governments have pledged to deliver justice in Regeni’s case, Cairo is an important ally for Italy in the Mediterranean, including in international counterterrorism efforts.

Some 270,000 signatures have been collected in Italy on an online petition for Italian citizenship for Zaki, Italian media reported this week.

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