Written By Selina Holgersson and Nikos Chircop
On the 7th of February 2020, when Europe was still at the cusp of the pandemic, Patrick George Zaki, a Masters student of Gender Studies at the University of Bologna, was detained under dubious pretences upon returning to his native Egypt for a family visit.
Till this day, he remains in arbitrary detention. While a number of reputable news outlets have reported shocking allegations of torture methods, ranging from beatings to electric shocks being used on the 27-year-old activist, his mother, who recently was allowed to visit him, found him in a relatively good state of health.
The Egyptian authorities’ premise for his arrest is based on his ‘dissemination of fake news, and incitement of protest, violence, and terrorist crimes’. These claims, made by what is after all a military dictatorship, hold little clout upon seeing Zaki’s work in promoting human rights, especially the rights of minority groups in society. This surely doesn’t merit the 13 to 25-year prison sentence that the Al Sisi regime is intending for Zaki.
While not a citizen of the European Union, Zaki was living and studying in the EU through the Erasmus Mundus programme, which is directly supported by the European Commission. Zaki certainly isn’t being protected by Egyptian institutions like the courts who not only accepted a falsified police report, but allowed for his fifteen-day pre-detention trial, and neither by his country’s mainstream media which, in an attempt to humiliate him, have called him ‘a terrorist and a subversive and degenerate homosexual’. It is precisely for these reasons that we owe it to Zaki to raise awareness, and pressure our authorities to step up their game in promoting values of press freedom, rule of law, and fundamental human rights.
In recent years, the EU has become a hotspot for young international students looking for quality education. According to Eurostat, over 0.6 million first residence permits for the purpose of educational activities were issued in 2016. The majority of EU-based universities cater to international students and through programmes like Erasmus Mundus, Europe has widened the doors for international students.
Universities have never existed within a vacuum, rather, they have historically been pillars of our societies, as well as a community within a community. The Commission has even gone as far as to introduce incentives that encourage international students to stay beyond the completion of their studies, such as simplified application procedures, the possibility for post-grads to remain in Europe while searching for a job, full access to the labour market, and lower salary requirements. Most EU-27 countries also allow third-country nationals with student permits to work for a maximum number of 15 hours per week, thus contributing to their economies.
However, the case of Patrick Zaki exposes the flaws within the European push for third-country students. International students do not just benefit from our academic institutions, but they actively contribute to our stellar academic record and also to our economy. They become ingrained in our society, they become our university colleagues, they become our friends, and they become a part of our community.
We cannot deprive international students of the rights we give European citizens, as thanks to their determination, they have undefined, but vital roles in our society. As one of the most influential political entities in the world, we cannot dismiss our moral responsibility to protect the people who contribute to the functioning and well-being of our society.
Patrick Zaki unfortunately falls within a group of people who have slipped through the cracks, who have been left undefined and vulnerable by the failure to recognise universities as communities and failure to recognise the status of third-country national students. Students and academics at the University of Bologna have called for the EU to step in to help their colleague, and to sever academic ties with countries that no longer fulfil their moral obligations. After all, how can we support regimes which suppress the values we cherish so greatly in our society?
Authoritarian regimes suppress the critical thinking and intellectual achievements of their academics, and our institutions that continue working alongside these regimes are complacent in the suppression of free speech. With only 16% to 30% of international students remaining in the EU after graduation, we cannot teach a generation of third-country nationals to be critical thinkers only for them to be punished for it in countries that we actively maintain a relationship with.
To know more and see what you can do to help #FreePatrick you can access the European Students’ Union’s dedicated webpage here and sign their petition.
