CAIRO — An
Egyptian court called Sunday for a legal amendment to allow the live broadcast
of the execution of the killer of a female student, as a deterrent to frequent
homicides.
اضافة اعلان
In a highly publicized two-day trial, Mohamed Adel
was found guilty last month of the “premeditated murder” of fellow university
student
Nayera Ashraf, who had rejected his advances, after he confessed to the
crime in court.
The criminal
court which sentenced Adel in Mansoura, 130km north of Cairo, called on the
legislature to amend the law governing capital punishment, in order to allow
the execution to be broadcast live.
In a letter to parliament, the court argued that
“the broadcast, even of only part of the start of proceedings, could achieve
the goal of deterrence, which was not achieved by broadcasting the sentencing
itself”.
Egyptians shared their horror online when a video
went viral in June appearing to show Ashraf being stabbed outside her
university in Mansoura.
The maximum penalty for murder is death in Egypt,
which carried out the world’s third highest number of executions in 2021,
according to Amnesty International.
But capital punishment is rarely carried out in
public or broadcast. In a rare exception, state television broadcast the
execution of three men in 1998 who had murdered a woman and her two children in
their Cairo home.
High profile femicides have triggered widespread
anger in Egypt in recent months.
In June, the murder of television presenter
Shaimaa Gamal stirred controversy in the country.
Her husband, a senior judicial official, was
arrested following a tip-off from an accomplice who confessed to taking part in
the crime, according to the prosecution.
In March, a teenager was sentenced to five years in
prison over the suicide of a schoolgirl after images of her were shared online.
Patriarchal legislation and conservative
interpretations of Islam in Egypt have contributed to severely limiting women’s
rights.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
