Mohamed Adel was sentenced to death for killing Navera Ashraf
An Egyptian court has asked for a man who killed a fellow student after she reportedly dismissed his advances to be executed on live television.
Mohamed Adel was convicted of killing 21-year-old Nayera Ashraf outside Mansoura University in northern Egypt last month in a case that sparked widespread outrage.
Adel, also 21, was sentenced to death at Mansoura Courthouse, where officials have now reportedly written to parliament to ask for his execution to be broadcast live to act as a deterrent.
In a letter to parliament quoted by local media, the court wrote: “The broadcast, even if only part of the start of proceedings, could achieve the goal of deterrence, which was not achieved by broadcasting the sentencing itself.”
An execution was previously broadcast live in 1998, when state television showed the hanging of three men who had killed a woman and her two children at their home in Cairo, The Independent reported.
Mansoura Court refers the case of Mohamed Adel, the murderer of Nayera Ashraf, to the Grand Mufti.#Africa #Egypt | #حق_نيرة_أشرف#نيرة_أشرف pic.twitter.com/L2u2lN7b8i
— Egypt Today Magazine (@EgyptTodayMag) June 28, 2022
Mansoura Courthouse was told that Adel stabbed Ashraf outside the university after she rejected his advances. Some reports suggest she rejected his marriage proposal.
During the sentence hearing, the court discovered that Adel had been sending death threats to Ashraf’s phone and stalking her, according to the female student’s family and friends.
The sentence, which had to go to Egypt’s grand mufti, a religious figure who rules on certain legal cases, is expected to be appealed. It was made public on 24 July.
The murder was captured on video and went viral, sending shockwaves across the Middle East. The horror was compounded by a similar killing at a university in Jordan days later.
Recorded instances of violence against women are on the rise in Egypt and authorities have been criticised for not taking the issue seriously.
https://twitter.com/_Syriana_/status/1540313225027264512
Amnesty International said last year that police did not adequately investigate sexual and gender-based violence, nor did the courts adequately punish it.
Egypt has been handing out an increasing number of death sentences in recent years, with regional human rights activists counting 80 in the first six months of 2021.
To achieve all #SDGs we must empower #women in all aspects of life by:
☑️Achieving #EqualPay
☑️Sharing unpaid care & domestic work equally
☑️Ending gender-based violenceVia: @unwomenuae pic.twitter.com/vJQ8sYBqBP
— UN Women Egypt (@unwomenegypt) July 17, 2022
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the list of countries with the ‘most confirmed executions in 2020’, Egypt came in within the top three, with over 107 executions confirmed.
It ranked in the same third place position in the list of ‘countries with the most death sentences in 2020’ with a number of over 264.
