News

UNI Global Union joins with the ITUC in calling on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to ensure a full investigation into the murder of Italian Ph.D. student Giulio Regeni in Cairo.  

Twenty-eight-year-old Regeni, a student at Cambridge University researching Egypt’s independent trade union movement, was brutally tortured and murdered on 25 January.

UNI Global Union’s General Secretary Philip Jennings said, “Our hearts go out to Giulio’s family for their terrible loss and we send our deepest condolences to them. The Egyptian government has a duty of care to fully investigate this terrible death. Egypt must look itself in the mirror and question its current human rights record. Giulio Regeni’s death is unfortunately not an isolated incident. The government must do everything in its power to make sure these attacks on democracy are not allowed to be repeated. “

Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said, “This atrocity, against an innocent young researcher, must be fully investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice.  The heavy-handed tactics of Egypt’s police, the string of disappearances in recent months and the mounting repression of civil society show that President Sisi’s government is heading in the wrong direction.  The prospects for fundamental democratic rights and freedoms, including the right to freedom of association for the country’s workers, are receding by the day.  We call upon the government to change course, to support and protect human rights and avoid yet more bloodshed and the possibility of further mass unrest.”