Justice for Professor Saibaba and Patrick Zaki
In 2020/21, Nottingham Students for Scholars at Risk (SAR) campaigned for the release of Professor Saibaba, detained in India, and Patrick George Zaki, detained in Egypt.
2020/21 Student Advocacy Group:
- Busola Ajayi, BA Law with Spanish and Spanish Law
- Holly Aldridge, BA History and Politics
- Ellie Clark, BA Liberal Arts
- Liam-Elio Colabuono-McDonagh, BA Geography
- Ana Popovic, LLM Human Rights Law
Over the course of the 2020/21 academic year, the SAR student advocacy group held various events aimed at raising awareness of SAR's work, and the two cases that they chose to represent.
Download our PDF campaign poster
Patrick George Zaki
On February 7, 2020, following a five-month period of study at the University of Bologna, Mr. Zaki, a postgraduate student, briefly visited Egypt. Upon arrival at Cairo International Airport, he was arrested and detained for questioning by the Egyptian National Security Agency. During interrogation, he was questioned about his activities in Italy and his human rights work.
Mr. Zaki was subjected to torture, enduring beatings and electric shocks. He was held in undisclosed locations and then brought to a public prosecutor's office, where he was detained for an additional 15 days. It is believed that Mr. Zaki was arrested as part of a protest crackdown in Egypt.
After 19 months in pretrial detention, on September 13, 2021, Mr. Zaki was indicted by the State Security Supreme Prosecution (SSSP) for "spreading false news inside and outside of the country". The charge was based on an article he wrote about his experiences as a Coptic Egyptian entitled, "Displacement, Killing, and Restriction: A week’s diaries of Egypt’s Copts," published in July 2019. His detention was extended multiple times, with hearings postponed and transfers to various facilities without his family's knowledge.
On July 19, 2023, Mr. Zaki was pardoned by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, one day after he was sentenced to three years in prison. Nottingham Students for SAR welcome the dismissal of charges against Mr. Zaki.
Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba
Professor Saibaba is a human rights activist and scholar of English literature at Delhi University who has engaged in human rights activism on behalf of vulnerable populations in India, notably tribal groups affected by poverty and human rights abuses amid the conflict with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), also known as CPI (Maoist).
On May 9, 2014, police arrested Professor Saibaba as he left the university campus. Authorities claimed to have found documents and correspondence purportedly linking him to the CPI (Maoist), an allegation he emphatically denies.
On March 7, 2017, Professor Saibaba was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on a charge of “being a member of a terrorist gang or organisation” despite a lack of credible evidence linking him to the CPI (Maoist) group. Professor Saibaba suffers from several health conditions and was not provided with sufficient medical treatment in detention. As a result, his health rapidly deteriorated following his arrest and detention.
Join SAR in helping imprisoned scholars by taking action through the Scholars-in-Prison project