Egypt, the student of the University of Vienna has reappeared: he is in prison. “Frightened and with a swollen face, he was beaten”

The good news since Cairo arrived on Friday afternoon when Ahmed Samir Santawy, Egyptian student of the Ceu University of Vienna, reappeared six days after entering the police station in el-Tagamoa al-Awal, V Settlement in New Cairo. However, there is a downside, since the 29 year old researcher appeared behind the bars of the State Security Prosecution of Cairo during the first renewal hearing of a court case in which it was entered, the number 65/2021. A new case, the same charges: joining a terrorist group and dissemination of news e false information and dangerous for the state.

Clear signal of a tense strategy a silence any voice considered in disagreement with the regime, with particular force against students, both foreign in Egypt and Egyptians abroad. As happened to Patrick Zaki |, of which Sunday is first anniversary of the arrest at the Cairo airport, a judicial path is also expected for Santawy painful made up of repeated renewals of the precautionary measure seamless. The bad news does not end there: “Our lawyers were able to see Ahmed Samir, even if for a few minutes, during the validation hearing today – he explains Mohamed Abdelsalam, the director of the NGO Afte, with whom Santawy himself has collaborated in the past – He was scared and above all he had the swollen face. In recent days they have beaten him, but we do not know if in addition to the blows he has also suffered some torture”.

Ahmed Samir Santawy has disappeared last Monday at midday when, responding diligently to a summons from the police authorities, he went to the station in New Cairo for ‘communications’. From that moment on, all traces of him have been lost. THE family members of the student, especially his brother Abdul Rahman, they immediately got worried and first went to the station el-Tagamoa where an official denied that the 29-year-old had been taken away: “An eyewitness – say the leaders of Afte – saw Ahmed Samir last Tuesday, February 2, and also Thursday 4 until he was taken to a unknown location. According to what his brother told us, it was not the first time that Ahmed Samir was stopped by the police authorities. The same thing had happened there last December, returning fromAustria. Stopped at the airport he was detained for checks, they asked him where and what subjects he studied, but that time they let him go. We don’t know what happened in the meantime to get them change your mind”.

In fact last January 23 plainclothes agents they showed up at the student’s house in New Cairo, but he wasn’t there. At that time he was in Dahab, seaside resort of Sinai. The police could have stopped him there, on the contrary they decided to leave an anotice of meeting to family members, with the request to report to the police station on Monday 1st February. From there the way tonightmare. The story immediately went around the circles of Egyptian activism and obviously also left the North African borders to reach theEurope. The Rector and President of the Heaven (Central European University), Michael Ignatieff, Thursday sent a official request to the Cairo authorities asking for the release of the student, enrolled in the second year of Master in Sociology and Anthropology. In light of what happened, it is very likely that the Viennese university and that of Bologna, engaged in a long awareness campaign for the fate of Patrick Zaki |, can join the efforts to cry out for the intervention of their respective governments. In the meantime, this invitation to join forces came from Senator Cinquestelle Michela Montevecchi: “Yesterday I personally contacted the Rector of the Central European University in Vienna putting myself a total disposition to start a dialogue with the Austrian university in view of joint actions ”, confirms the M5s representative from Bologna.

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