Giulio Regeni: Six years of obliteration of facts and attempts to escape punishment

On February 3 of each year, international human rights organizations and trade unions evoke a painful memory, which is represented in finding the young Italian student and researcher Giulio Regeni mutilated and killed in a suburb of Cairo after he was kidnapped, detained, and tortured to death by an unknown group.

Since that date, February 3, 2016, justice has not been achieved due to the Egyptian authorities’ refusal to reveal all the truth about Regeni’s death in an attempt to escape punishment, despite the prosecution nominally charging Egyptian officers with the crime of torture and murder.

This crime, recorded against a student who was conducting academic research on trade unions in Egypt, brings to mind the serious reports about human rights conditions and public and individual freedoms in Egypt, where tens of thousands of journalists, peaceful civil activists, human rights activists, and oppositions are still detained because of their opinions on the pretext that they are terrorists. Thousands of them are also held in prolonged pretrial detention. Moral charges are fabricated against bloggers who often are subjected to enforced disappearance and torture.

The Egyptian government also continues to restrict freedoms of trade union work by issuing restrictive laws that deprive thousands of Egyptian workers of the freedom to form independent trade unions and choose their representatives. The new labour law bill includes several provisions and materials that allow for the violation of the rights of workers.

The signatory organizations of this statement call on all international human rights bodies to strengthen solidarity with trade unionists and activists in Egypt in order to be able to exercise their rights and to work collectively for the release of detainees for reasons related to freedom of expression and dissenting opinion. The signatories also call on the Egyptian authorities to cooperate in order to reveal the truth, achieve justice in the case of the murder of student Giulio Regeni by handing over the perpetrators and bringing them before a fair trial.

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