Egyptian researcher Patrick Zaki was sentenced on Tuesday to three years in prison for publishing “false information” for publishing an article denouncing discrimination against Coptic Christians in Egypt, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, to which he belongs.
The State Security Court ruled an emergency in Mansoura. North of Cairo, Zaki was imprisoned for three years and immediately arrested and transferred to prison, according to Hossam Bahgat, the founder of the initiative, noting that Zaki was detained for 22 months before he was released in December 2021. It is not possible to appeal the rulings issued by the State Security Court. emergency in Egypt.
“This is a disregard for justice, but unfortunately it is very common,” Bahjat said. “We call on the president to immediately overturn this ruling.”
A judicial source said that the time he spent in pretrial detention will be counted within the sentence.
Amnesty International, in a statement released on Tuesday in Italian, called the verdict a “scandal”. Human rights defenders said that Zaki was beaten and tortured with electricity during his arrest.
“Our commitment to a positive resolution of the Patrick Zaki case has never stopped, it continues and we remain confident in that,” Italian Prime Minister Giorga Meloni said in a statement.
Zaki’s case attracted wide attention in Italy, which had previously experienced shock following the killing of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Egypt in 2016.
Thousands of people in Italy signed petitions calling for Zaki’s release, and the country’s Senate voted in 2021. to grant him Italian citizenship.
And promise Copts The largest Christian minority in the Middle East, representing 10 to 15 percent of Egypt’s population of 105 million. Zaki, a specialist in gender issues and researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, was arrested in February 2020 on charges of “terrorism” upon his return from Italy, where he was studying at the University of Bologna.
Arrests and assassinations… The situation of “press freedom” in the Arab world is still worrying
Saudi Arabia – no voice for criticism
Saudi Arabia comes very late in press freedom indicators, especially since the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in his country’s consulate in Istanbul. But it’s not just Saudi journalists who are in danger. Even foreigners are being imprisoned. Among them is the Yemeni journalist Ali Abu Lahoum, who was convicted by Riyadh of 15 years in prison on charges of calling for atheism and apostasy, because of a Twitter account he was running under a pseudonym, while Reporters Without Borders says that the account was critical of the Saudi authorities.
Arrests and assassinations… The situation of “press freedom” in the Arab world is still worrying
Morocco – Three prominent journalists behind bars
A number of Moroccan journalists and bloggers are in prison, including three prominent journalists. One of them is Omar Radi. A journalist best known for his investigative reporting, he was imprisoned on charges of espionage for foreign countries and sexual assault. However, human rights organizations attribute the reason for the arrest to the uproar caused by his disclosure that his phone had been spied on by the Pegasus program, especially since an Amnesty International report stated the same thing, which created tension at the time between Rabat and the human rights organization.
Arrests and assassinations… The situation of “press freedom” in the Arab world is still worrying
Lebanon – the assassination threatens journalists
Journalists in Lebanon do not necessarily suffer from the tyranny of power, but rather the danger comes more from armed organizations that may assassinate them. The example is from the incident of journalist and political analyst Luqman Selim, who was found murdered in his car, in February 2021, with bullets to the head. He is a major critic of Hezbollah and has previously held it responsible for the deterioration of the situation in the country. This is the second assassination of its kind in less than two years, after the assassination of Lebanese army photographer Joseph Bejjani.
Arrests and assassinations… The situation of “press freedom” in the Arab world is still worrying
Iraq – The threat is not only from militants
Iraq is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists due to the threats of armed organizations. At least three journalists have been killed in the last three years, and a number of them have been forced to leave and seek asylum. But the matter is not only about assassination threats, arrests and sentences are also present. A year ago, the Iraqi Kurdistan authorities accused three journalists of espionage, and sentenced them to six years on charges of threatening national security.
Arrests and assassinations… The situation of “press freedom” in the Arab world is still worrying
UAE – a different picture of the “place of tolerance”
The UAE presents itself as one of the castles of tolerance in the Middle East, but human rights organizations question this, especially with the wide restrictions on the press there, including the international press. One of the biggest cases of harassment of journalists in the UAE is what happened to the Jordanian journalist Tayseer Al-Najjar, who was imprisoned for three years, and died after his health conditions deteriorated, less than two years after his release.
Arrests and assassinations… The situation of “press freedom” in the Arab world is still worrying
Egypt is one of the largest prisons for journalists
Egypt is one of the world’s largest prisons for journalists, and recently at least 66 journalists were counted in prison. The names are many, but among them are four journalists working for Al-Jazeera Mubasher, and the irony is that they were all arrested after they arrived in Egypt for family vacations, despite the relatively improved relations between Egypt and Qatar. One of them, Ahmed Al-Najdi, is 67 years old, and there are confirmations that he suffers from difficult health conditions.
Arrests and assassinations… The situation of “press freedom” in the Arab world is still worrying
The page was not rolled out in Algeria
Algeria announced a “presidential pardon” for many journalists and political detainees, but in reality, not much has changed. Many activists are still imprisoned because of their opinions, including journalist and human rights activist Hassan Bouras, who is accused of belonging to a “terrorist group” that is the Rashad Organization. Human rights reports believe that the matter is related to arrest on the background of Facebook posts, and media reports have previously confirmed Bouras’s withdrawal from this organization. before his arrest.
2023-07-19 21:34:43
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