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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.

Iran drops spying charge for detained French academic: lawyer

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A French academic who reportedly partook in a hunger strike alongside detained Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert has had her charges dropped by Iran.

Iran has dropped espionage charges that had been laid against an Iranian-French academic detained in the Islamic republic since last year, her lawyer said.

"The espionage charge has been dropped" for Sciences Po University academic Fariba Adelkhah, Said Dehghan said. 

The lawyer welcomed the decision to lift the charge which carries the death penalty.

Ms Adelkhah still faces two other charges: spreading "propaganda against the political system" of the Islamic republic; and "conspiracy against national security".

The lawyer said the prosecution had dropped its case against her for "disturbing the public order".

Ms Adelkhah, an expert on Iran and Shiite Islam, was arrested in Tehran in June last year.

Her Sciences Po colleague Roland Marchal was arrested in the same month while visiting Ms Adelkhah.

Iran does not recognise dual nationality and has repeatedly rebuffed calls from foreign governments for consular access to those it has detained during legal proceedings.


It accused France of "interference" in December after the French foreign ministry summoned Iran's ambassador to Paris to protest the imprisonment of Adelkhah and Marchal.

Their detention added to distrust between Tehran and Paris at a time when French President Emmanuel Macron has been seeking to play a leading role in defusing tensions between Iran and the United States.

The French pair are not the only foreign academics behind bars in Iran.


Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert of the University of Melbourne is also imprisoned in the country.

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed "deep concern" over the Australian academic's case when she reportedly began a hunger strike on Christmas Eve after losing an appeal against a 10-year jail sentence.

Sciences Po said at the time that Ms Adelkhah had also begun a hunger strike.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, January 7, 2020


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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: Iran
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