SW News: The Emergency State Security Court in Mansoura, Egypt, has sentenced Patrick George Zaki, a Coptic Christian, to three years in prison over an article he wrote for the Daraj news website in 2019, shedding light on the discrimination faced by the Coptic Christian community in Egypt. "Not a month goes by without painful incidents occurring against the Copts of Egypt," Zaki said in the article.

He was taken into custody soon after the court verdict on July 18. Though the verdict is not subject to appeal, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has the authority to ratify or quash it. Zaki, a former student at the University of Bologna in Italy, was arrested in Cairo three years ago and charged with “disseminating false news about the country’s internal conditions to disturb security and social peace.” During his pretrial detention, which lasted for around 22 months, the authorities reportedly tortured Zaki.

Civil society organizations, including Amnesty International, have condemned the Egyptian court’s July 18 verdict. In a joint statement, they called on the Egyptian authorities to "immediately release Patrick Zaki from custody, drop all charges and close all cases brought against him in their entirety, and lift the travel ban brought against him.”