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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.

Saudi Arabia executes four people, including one woman, for drug trafficking

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Public beheading in Saudi Arabia
Deaths bring number of executions in the kingdom to 53 this year

Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry said four people were executed on Monday for drug trafficking, including one woman, bringing to 53 the number of people put to death this year.

Two Pakistani men, a Yemeni man, and a Nigerian woman were executed in the holy city of Mecca, the ministry said in statements carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Fifty-three people have been executed in the kingdom since the beginning of the year, according to a count based on official data released by SPA.

The ultra-conservative kingdom has one of the world’s highest execution rates, with those convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery, homosexuality and drug trafficking facing the death penalty.

Rights experts have repeatedly raised concerns about the fairness of trials in the kingdom, governed under a strict form of Islamic law. 

The government says the death penalty is a deterrent for further crime.

Last year, Saudi Arabia carried out the death sentences of 120 people.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, April 1, 2019


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Mecca Saudi Arabia
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