GREAT ST. MARY’S – Cambridge gathered on Thursday evening to remember one of its own – Giulio Regeni, a PhD student murdered in Egypt two years ago, and still no one held responsible.

Roughly 150 students, academics, and other residents of the city congregated outside Great St. Mary’s church at half past seven to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the disappearance of Regeni, whose tortured body was found just over a week later. Regeni was in Egypt researching trade union movements when he was murdered, and despite many accusing the Egyptian state of being responsible for the killing, no one has been charged.

King’s Parade has seen its fair share of protests and rallies over recent years, but at an event to remember the brutal murder of a Cambridge student, the mood was unsurprisingly more sombre.

Chairperson of the University Amnesty International group, Laura Bates, began proceedings by thanking those who had turned up and inviting them to join her in a minute’s silence. The silence began at 7:41pm, the same time as the last contact with Regeni on the 25th January 2016.

Following the reading of a short poem by Pablo Neruda, Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner acknowledged that many of the crowd would have been at the same event this time last year, and called the lack of progress “a disgrace”.

“I am absolutely determined that we keep on pressing to find out what happened,” he added.

Alex Mayer, MEP for the East of England, noted that she had been at a similar event with her European colleagues: “There are truly shocked people from right across Europe”, she said.

The vigil was ended on a hopeful note, with Italian student Mario Avesani saying that far from seeing it as a sad day, those present should take cheer from the fact they were standing collectively to call for justice.

“We are doing this together,” he argued, before performing a short trumpet piece that prompted some in the crowd to start singing along.

The event was timed to coincide with a number of similar gatherings in public spaces across Italy, where Regeni was originally from. In Rome alone, there were seven separate vigils.

The two year anniversary of Regeni’s murder has seen a renewal in the efforts to bring his killer(s) to justice. Earlier on Thursday Zeichner spoke out in parliament to ask what the British government was doing to push the case forward.

Saying that the case called into question “very basic academic freedoms”, Zeichner went on to ask “what the Government is doing to mark the event and also what pressure is being exerted on the Egyptian Government to find the truth about what happened to Giulio.”

The Cambridge city branch of Amnesty International will on Friday be meeting with the MEP for Regeni’s home region in Italy, Isabella de Monte, to discuss the future of the campaign to bring his killers to justice.

The University also tweeted its support, saying in a post: “On the second anniversary of his disappearance, we remember Giulio Regeni – Cambridge scholar, colleague and friend. Our thoughts are once again with his family, who we join in demanding truth for Giulio.”

The University has come under repeated criticism from certain sections of the Italian media for an alleged lack of cooperation with the investigation into the murder. Irrespective of the veracity of these claims, on this evening’s evidence it would be entirely unfair to claim that Cambridge as a whole is not interested in finding justice for Regeni