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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Egyptian justice system is broken, Amnesty International says

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Amnesty International condemned the sentences handed down to the 1st freely elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and more than 100 of his aides and supporters, the Anadolu Agency reported yesterday.

"To stop the death sentences, we will organise widespread protests throughout our offices all over the world," Amnesty spokeswoman in Sweden Elisabeth Lofgren said. "These sentences prove that the justice system has broken down in Egypt," she added.

Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui told Anadolu: "These entire legal proceedings have been a mockery of justice and the death sentences must be thrown out."

She added: "Mohamed Morsi and his aides must be released or retried in civilian court in line with Egyptian law and international fair trial standards without recourse to the death penalty."

Meanwhile, the French Human Rights League (LdH) slammed the trials for being unfair, saying: "Everyone is entitled to a fair trial and the various trials underway in Egypt, whether they concern the Muslim Brotherhood or the democrats, do not have anything fair and are therefore not acceptable, let alone when there are death sentences."

Yesterday, an Egyptian court sentenced former President Mohamed Morsi to death over jailbreak charges. The court also sentenced five leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Mohamed Badie, to death on charges of taking part in a mass jailbreak in 2011.

Nearly 100 others were sentenced in absentia, including prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.

Source: Middle East Monitor, June 18, 2015

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