Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Wednesday July 19 granted a pardon to researcher Patrick Zaki and to Mohamed Al-Baqer, the lawyer for Alaa Abd El-Fattah, Egypt’s most famous political detainee. , reports the state newspaper Al-Ahram.

Mr. Zaki, 32, had been sentenced the previous day to three years in prison for “spreading false information”, because of an article he wrote denouncing discrimination against Christians in Egypt. This decision had prompted several human rights figures to leave the “national dialogue” launched by the government and supposed to give a voice to all.

Released in December 2021 after twenty-two months of pre-trial detention, Mr. Zaki was present on Tuesday at the hearing at the emergency state security court in Mansoura, a city located 130 kilometers north of Cairo. He was arrested there and immediately taken to prison, according to Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

Mr. Zaki faced up to five years in prison for publishing an article in an online newspaper in 2019 recounting a week of rights violations against Copts, the largest Christian minority in the Middle East to which 10 to 15 belong. % of 105 million Egyptians. A researcher with the EIPR, Mr. Zaki was arrested in February 2020 for “terrorism” on his return from Italy, where he was studying at the University of Bologna.

His condemnation in the midst of a national dialogue – launched in early May by the President, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, to discuss all the delicate subjects less than a year from a presidential election – has sparked indignation in the ranks of the human rights activists.

“Propaganda for National Dialogue”

Lawyer Negad El-Borai announced on Twitter on Tuesday that he was “completely withdrawing from the work” of this dialogue, of which he was one of the coordinators. “The conviction of Patrick Zaki (…) makes my presence useless, he writes, I apologize for this failure. His colleague Mahienour El-Masry denounced a verdict rendered “in full propaganda for the national dialogue”.

On Tuesday evening, the national dialogue coordinator, Diaa Rashwan, head of the state communication services, also appealed for Mr. Zaki’s “immediate release” to reaffirm the “president’s continued commitment” to establish “a positive climate for the success of the national dialogue”. Several weeks ago, Mr. Rashwan had already pleaded before journalists for the release of Mohamed El-Baqer, sentenced to four years in prison, also for “disseminating false information”.

This 42-year-old lawyer was arrested in 2019 even as he attended the interrogation of his client Alaa Abd El-Fattah, pro-democracy blogger and figure of the 2011 revolution, still detained despite a hunger strike during the COP27 hosted by Egypt in November. For years, his name has topped the list of releases demanded by human rights defenders around the world.

During the three decades of rule of autocrat Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011), freedoms were restricted for intellectuals, but they have further diminished since Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi came to power in 2014. Egypt occupies the last ranks of the ranking of academic freedom in the world, established by the Academic Freedom Index, alongside Saudi Arabia, Turkey or China.

Since 2014, the authorities have been carrying out a ruthless repression against academics, but also journalists, artists, lawyers, trade unionists and other political activists. Hundreds of students and academics have been arrested since 2013, and a dozen researchers are in prison for their work, according to NGOs.

Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi was the first Egyptian leader to appoint a Copt to head the Constitutional Court. He is also the first president to attend Christmas mass every year. Despite these symbols, Coptic activists regularly claim to be victims of discrimination, pointing out difficulties in particular in accessing the public service.