CAIRO — An Egyptian court docket sentenced a rights activist on Tuesday to a few years in jail over an opinion article he wrote in 2019 in a case that renewed world consideration to Egypt‘s intolerance of presidency critics.

The case of Patrick George Zaki has additionally echoed in Italy, the place he was a postgraduate pupil and the place many have been reminded of the tragic destiny of Italian pupil Giulio Regeni who was kidnapped and killed in Cairo in 2016.

Amnesty International swiftly condemned Egyptian authorities and stated that the picture of Zaki being dragged out of a courtroom and brought to jail on Tuesday was “terrifying.”

The court docket within the Nile Delta metropolis of Mansoura convicted Zaki of “disseminating false news” associated to an article of his about alleged discrimination in opposition to the Coptic Christian minority in Egypt, in keeping with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Zaki labored with the group as a gender rights researcher.

The group, which represents Zaki earlier than the court docket, stated he was taken into custody from the courtroom immediately after the decision, to be transferred to a jail to serve his sentence.

Zaki, who's Christian, was arrested in February 2020 shortly after touchdown in Cairo for a brief journey house from Italy the place he was finding out on the University of Bologna. He was launched in December 2021 after spending 22 months in pretrial detention however needed to stay in Egypt and was not allowed to journey overseas, pending trial.

Because Zaki was tried earlier than an emergency court docket, he has no proper to enchantment below Egyptian legal guidelines, his rights group stated, one other level of competition in Egypt‘s human rights file.

However, the court docket’s ruling nonetheless requires a ratification by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who has the ability to annul it or pardon the researcher.

Egypt‘s jailing and silencing of critics have introduced worldwide condemnation and are key factors of friction between the North African nation and the West.

Zaki’s arrest and trial turned entrance web page information in Italy and sparked a wave of pupil protests there. For many Italians, his detention was harking back to the dying of Italian doctoral pupil Giulio Regeni, who was kidnapped in Cairo, tortured, and killed in 2016 - a macabre case that shocked the world and which rights teams have blamed Egyptian authorities for.

Italian and different European governments have repeatedly referred to as for Zaki‘s launch.

In a press release after the decision, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni stated that “our commitment for a positive solution to the case of Patrick Zaki has never ceased, it continues, we still have faith.”

Riccardo Noury, a spokesman in Italy for Amnesty International, described the decision as “scandalous” in a put up on Twitter. “After 22 months in a very tough prison and a trial begun more than a year ago, the image of Patrick dragged away from the Mansura courthouse courtroom is terrifying,” Noury stated.

Over the previous decade, Egypt has seen the heaviest crackdown on dissent in a long time. Authorities have focused not solely Islamist political opponents but additionally pro-democracy activists, journalists, and on-line critics.

Lengthy pretrial detentions have grow to be frequent apply to maintain the federal government’s critics behind bars for so long as potential.

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Associated Press author Frances D’Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.

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