London Vigil for Guilio Regeni

Recently we have taken on the case of Guilio Regeni, a 33 year old Italian PhD student studying at Cambridge University.

He travelled to Egypt in 2015 to progress his PhD and in February 2016 his tortured body was found dumped on the roadside outside Cairo. He may have been accused of spying by the Egyptian authorities. Reports of this are very confused but the security forces may be implicated in his violent death.

We are helping the Cambridge AI Group in calling for an independent and thorough investigation into his death. We are also providing solidarity and support to Guilio’s family via AI Italy.

On Saturday 1st February, three of us joined thirty five other
campaigners from Cambridge AI, London AI groups, Cambridge University and the LSE together with colleagues who knew Guilio personally, for a vigil outside the Egyptian Embassy in London.
We attempted to hand in a letter to the Ambassador but this was refused.

The human rights situation in Egypt is dire, so we hope that working on this case may also help the thousands of others who have disappeared, been tortured and detained by the authorities.

The vigil was filmed by Al Jazeera TV.