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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.

Frenchman gets 8 years in prison in Iran; denies spy charges

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PARIS (AP) — A Frenchman detained in Iran and hunger striking to protest his treatment has been sentenced to eight years in prison on what his lawyer insisted Tuesday are trumped up espionage and propaganda charges.

Benjamin Brière, 36, was arrested in May 2020 after taking pictures in a desert area where photography is prohibited and asking questions on social media about Iran’s obligatory Islamic headscarf for women.

Paris-based lawyer Philippe Valent said an Iranian revolutionary court has sentenced Brière to eight years in prison for espionage and eight months of imprisonment for anti-government propaganda. Under Iranian law, the longer part is applicable in practice.

The lawyer said the charges are entirely without foundation.

Brière began a hunger strike on Dec. 25 to protest mistreatment in the prison of the northeastern city of Mashhad where he is being detained.

His sister, Blandine Brière, told The Associated Press “we are disheartened at such a huge sentence and also very angry to see this is actually a political trial."

“This is like a huge mountain in front of us, we feel helpless,” she added, saying her brother is caught in “a diplomatic game” played by Iranian authorities.

“Today we need the (French) government to take action and help us, help Benjamin and do whatever is needed to get him out," she said. “He is getting weaker, he is very tired physically and mentally. This is something that is very worrisome for us.”

Brière's Iranian lawyer, Saeed Dehghan, told the AP that his client is still on hunger strike yet is “in good spirits.”

Dehghan said the court hearing happened Thursday in Mashhad. Brière was charged for "cooperation with a foreign hostile nation against Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.

This is the first time that an Iranian court considers France a “hostile nation.” So far, the U.S. and Israel were on the list in similar cases.

France, alongside other world powers, is in negotiations with Iran in Vienna to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, January 25, 2022


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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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