Death Penalty More Often Held in Egypt

CAIRO : Court of Egypt has been carrying out the death penalty with "alarming frequency", as the state's effort to stem the increasing crime rate.

More than 269 people have been subjected to capital punishment in 2009, up from 86 people earlier in the year. Human rights groups said the court apparently acted under government pressure to send a strong message to the public.

"We do not see anything like this for more than 200 years," said Nasser Amin, director of the Cairo Center for Independence of the Judicial and Legal Profession based in Arab. "The numbers are alarming, in one case last year 24 people were sentenced to hang, and the other judges impose the death penalty 10 .."

Egypt has extended the application of the death penalty since President Hosni Mubarak took office in 1981. Previously, the death penalty is limited to murder and crimes against the state, now the number of crimes with the death penalty more than 40 and including drug trafficking, rape and arson.

"Over the last 20 years, every time the regime is facing problems, especially social, he was sentenced to death trying to get it done," said Amin. "A member of parliament has recently proposed a public execution in the Tahrir Square (in downtown Cairo)."

A report released last week by the National Council for the Care and Social Development said about population growth, high unemployment, low wages, and the destruction of family life as the principal cause of crime. It said widespread corruption and lack of faith in the legal system has encouraged many people to take their rights by force.

"People are suffering from despair and frustration that leads to violence," the report said.

"This is prevention, particularly in cases of murder," said Mufid Shehab, minister of state for law and parliamentary affairs, in rapar legislature recently. "The punishment carried out with full guarantees of fair trial on several stages, and the penalty is not carried out until the mufti had been weighed in this case."

Egyptian law requires that the Grand Mufti should be consulted for each sentence. State-appointed religious authority must determine whether the punishment contrary to Sharia (Islamic law), which in the Islamic death penalty exists only in four cases: capital murder, armed robbery, adultery and apostasy.

Opinions are not binding and the mufti of President Mubarak who has the power to forgive or to continue the punishment.

Last June a judge imposed the death penalty for 24 defendants involved in the clashes that erupted due to land disputes in the Wadi Natroun, north of Cairo. Eleven people were killed in a firefight that lasted 48 hours.

"More people are sentenced to death by judges than those killed in the crossfire," said Hafez Abu pickup, chairman of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR). "This is really the wrong decision, because they died in a firefight with each other that this murder was not planned .."

Abu pickup is also concerned with the high level of corruption and negligence in the police and judicial systems of Egypt, which increases the risk of executing innocent people. He cited several recent cases where this is believed to have occurred.

Negad El-Borai, a human rights lawyer, said the Egyptian experience has proven that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime.

"The Government has imposed the death penalty for drug offenses for more than 20 years, but the actual volume of marijuana distribution (trafficking) is even higher than before," he said. "You can not stop crime by using the death penalty or long prison sentence if you want to solve this problem you must go to the root of the problem."