Originally posted to the Middle East Monitor, 3 March 2021.
Egyptian authorities have executed 16 people convicted and sentenced to death in criminal cases this week, a significant hike in the number of executions in the country.
Yesterday alone, authorities executed 11 people in the Borg Al-Arab prison in the coastal city of Alexandria, in the country’s north.
On Saturday they executed five persons, including three women.
Normally the Ministry of Interior does not announce beforehand that it is carrying out executions and it notifies the families of executed inmates only after their deaths so they can receive the bodies for burial.
Authorities have not identified the 16 persons who have been executed or the nature of the criminal cases in which they were sentenced.
Last December, the international human rights watchdog Amnesty International criticised what it described as a “horrifying execution spree” in Egypt.
The human rights organisation Community for Justice documented 87 executions carried out by Egyptian authorities in the two months of October and December 2020, which it describes as a record number.
Link to the original post: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210303-egypt-executes-16-persons-sentenced-to-death-in-one-week/
