Giuseppe Ciccia/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images. All rights reserved.Giulio Regeni, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge, disappeared in Cairo on 25 January, and was found dead with signs of torture on his body on 3 February. Giulio Regeni conducted research which contributed to our knowledge of social and global justice, the impact of civil movements on power structures before and during revolutions, the role of women in political activism, and the role of trade unions in providing living wages to citizens.
Over 4,600 academics worldwide asked the Egyptian authorities to "cooperate with an independent and impartial investigation into all instances of forced disappearances, cases of torture and deaths in detention during January and February this year, alongside investigations by criminal prosecutors into Giulio’s death, in order that those responsible for these crimes can be identified and brought to justice."
Terror in Egypt
But the Egyptian government has said it would treat Regeni’s case "as if he were an Egyptian." The government does not have much credibility for human rights organisations both in and outside Egypt. The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) said it was aware of 340 cases enforced disappearance in Egypt between August and November 2015, with a daily average of three cases. Amnesty International has shown that human rights activists, lawyers, political activists and independent journalists fear for their lives.
