Egyptian researcher Patrick Zaki was sentenced on Tuesday, July 18, to three years in prison for “false information” because of an article he wrote, denouncing discrimination against Christians in Egypt, in the midst of “national dialogue” meant to give everyone a voice.

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

As the trial of the Coptic human rights activist was held before a special court, it is not possible to appeal.

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.

In prison, Mr. Zaki, whose Senate in Rome voted to grant him Italian nationality, was “beaten and tortured with electricity”, say human rights defenders.

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.

“The Farce of the National Dialogue”

Lawyer Negad El-Borai announced on Twitter 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. »

Her colleague Mahienour El-Massry denounced a verdict rendered “in full propaganda for the national dialogue” and called for a “withdrawal” from “the farce of the national dialogue” so as not to “give the authorities the stick to be made beat “.

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.

In 2016, the case of the young Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, found dead in Cairo, his body mutilated, had created unease in the research community in Egypt. Attached to the University of Cambridge, he worked on trade unions, a very sensitive subject in Egypt.

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.