One week after I arrived in Bologna I saw messages in different groups, that a student from Bologna was arrested in Egypt because of being an activist. First I thought, “wow this must be popular guy that all this groups know him” but shortly after that I was surprised about the solidarity of the whole city…
Patrick Zaky is an Egyptian citizen, who is doing his Master here at the Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna in Gender and Women’s Studies. He moved here in August 2019 to pursue a higher education and used ERASMUS Mundus for doing so. As far as I found out he used to be an activist in Egypt for the rights of women and minorities, like Christians and the LBTQ+ community and also fight for the human rights of the detained. Unaware of the arrest In 2019 the Egyptian Government decided that he is a danger and he is making Fake News about his home country so they wanted to arrest him. Unaware of this he got back to Egypt to spend his vacation with family and friends. He landed and police took him away immediately. They questioned him at the airport for 20 hours and people say he was tortured with electroshocks. His family and friends didn’t know about his whereabouts during that time. Finally he was allowed to see a lawyer and the prosecutor decided to keep him in pre-trial detention for 15 days for further investigations.
Even Egyptian authorities were quick with clarifying his citizenship the connection to an Italian researcher who was first lost and then found dead was quickly found. Giulio Regeni was found brutally murdered in February of 2016, and Italy made Egypt authorities responsible for that, but till today there is no proof. Probably that is another reason for the huge solidarity here. On February 9th after people found out about what happened they organized a flashmob on the Piazza Maggiore. Some of the Meet-up I go every sunday wanted to go there and they told me and others that they actually knew Patrick and what a great guy he is and about the situation. During the last week I often saw the Hashtag #freePatrick or #PatrickGeorgeZaky or something similar on all social media and in the city. There was also an official notification of the University in Italian and English on their website.
On Monday the 17th the university even organized a demonstration for his liberation. It started on Piazza G. Verdi in front of the university and went to the Piazza Maggiore. I went with them, because I am interested in the cause. And I got even more amazed during that walk. People from all ages and all colors walked with us, shouting “Patrick Libero! Patrick Libero! Libero Subito” and I saw that the coat of arms of Bologna was in the demonstration as well, which gave it all a very official touch. On the Piazza Maggiore there were some speeches. In two corners actually. I didn’t understand much but I understood that they talked about Patrick as one of them “Patrick ê nostro student, nostro Cittadino”. At the end they asked to sing all together the song “Imagine” of John Lennon and the whole Piazza Maggiore was doing so. Goose bumps! And after that again “Patrick Libero! Patrick Libero! Patrick Libero”. And of course someone started and everyone sung along “Una mattina, mi sono alzato… ciao bella ciao ciao ciao”. Wow. What an experience.
Because I didn’t know Patrick or not knowing a lot of his cause and actions I felt a bit weird to go there at first. But when you are a political activist like I am use to be at home you probably already know that demonstrations take their power of their size, so everyone counts. And it’s an uniting process and because I took part on something of my current home, I feel much more involved than before. So here another tipp: Don’t be afraid of joining things you did at home and being curious about the causes of the place you’ll go. Try to understand why a cause is a cause. But when you do, please be reminded, you don’t have their experiences, so even when you think you know better because as an outsider you have a better perspective… be respectful, because mostly you don’t.
In case you’re interested about the cause and want to know more:
Italy alarmed after egyptian studying in bologna arrested in Cairo (The Guardian, 09. February 2020, english language)
Who is egyptian student and activist Patrick George Egyptian Street, 10. February 2020, english language)
Patrick George Zakys arrest the motion of the University of Bologna (Università di Bologna, 12. February 2020, english language)
Corteo Bologna Patrick Video (Bologna Today, 18. February 2020, italian language)
Huge concern for Zaky: Foreign ministry official (ANSA med, 18. February 2020, english language)
Travel, learn, share, repeat... 
One thought on “Patrick Libero! Libero Subito!”