ROME - The Senate has approved the motion to grant citizenship to Patrick Zaki, the Egypt student and researcher at the University of Bologna who has been unlawfully detained in Tora prison by Egyptian authorities for over a year.

  There were 208 votes in favour of the act, and none against, with 33 Senators abstaining - among them 22 Fratelli d'Italia Senators. The motion is not legally binding, but action will no doubt put pressure on the Egyptian government.

  The motion, passed on Wednesday, also asks the government to urge the liberation of Zaki from the Egyptian authorities, to monitor his trial and the condition of his detention, and to motivate action on a European level, and within G7, against countries in which violations of human rights persist.

  Liliana Segre, the 90 year old Holocaust survivor and Senator for Life, has expressed much support for the motion, and came to the Senate for only the second time since the start of the pandemic to vote on it. Speaking on Radio Popolare on Wednesday she said, "there is something in the story of Patrick Zaki that grabs me in particular, and it is remembering when an innocent person is in prison - this I have also experienced, and I will always be present, at least spiritually, when we speak of freedom."

  Marina Sereni, the Democratic Party's viceminister for Foreign Affairs, has said, "the Italian government has been following the Zaki case with great care since the first hours of his arrest and fully shares the parliament's worries in the light of the latest extension of his detention... We urge our Egyptian counterparts on every occasion possible to release the student. We are also following the evolution of the trial. On our request the the judicial process was included in the procedural monitoring programme of the EU a few days after his arrest."

  However, she continued to say that "the attribution of Italian citizenship to Patrick Zaki is as a symbolic measure with no practical effects to protect the person concerned... In the light of law and international principles, Italy will encounter considerable difficulties in providing consular protection to this young man, since he is also an Egyptian citizen, and the original citizenship will prevail."

  Even more important "is the risk to be assessed, of negative effects on the goal we care about most: the release of Patrick. In this sense, granting citizenship could even prove to be counterproductive." concluded Sereni, underlining the need “to make a thorough reflection."

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