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Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi granted a pardon Wednesday to researcher Patrick Zaki, state media said, a day after Zaki’s three-year jail term sparked an outcry from local rights groups and Western governments.
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The state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said Sisi also granted a presidential pardon to Mohamed al-Baqer, the lawyer for Alaa Abdel Fattah, Egypt’s best known political prisoner.
Zaki’s sentence on Tuesday for “spreading false news” had prompted some participants to walk out of a government dialogue aimed at giving the opposition a voice.
Zaki, 32, was jailed over an article recounting the discrimination he and other members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority say they have suffered.
“Mohamed Al-Baqer and Patrick Zaki should not have spent one day in jail for their human rights work,” said Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), where Zaki worked.
“We welcome the news of their pardon and call for the immediate release of thousands still detained in Egypt on political grounds,” Bahgat told AFP.
Word of the pardons came after the US State Department had said on Twitter it was “concerned” by Zaki’s sentence and urged the “immediate release of him and others unjustly detained”.
Zaki was studying at Bologna University in Italy until his arrest in 2020 while on a visit to Egypt.
Italy’s far right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who speaks regularly with Sisi, in a video message on Wednesday welcomed the news that Zaki would be freed and said “he will be back tomorrow in Italy”, the ANSA news agency reported.
Zaki previously spent 22 months in pre-trial detention until December 2021. He was returned to custody following Tuesday’s court ruling.
Cairo has come under frequent criticism for its human rights record, with tens of thousands of political prisoners — including journalists, lawyers,…
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Source : france24
