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On Wednesday, Egypt's prison authorities executed a man who was convicted of killing a 21-year-old woman last June.
Mohammed Adel, 22, was executed in Gamasa Prison in the Dakahlia governorate in northeast Egypt after the Court of Cassation in February upheld the death sentence issued against him.
On June 20, 2022, Adel approached fellow student Nayera Ashraf near Mansoura University, severely beat her and stabbed her multiple times. Videos of the crime showed Ashraf fighting for her life as bystanders tried to help her. Adel was waving his knife and threatening her friends before he slit her throat, ending her life.
Adel was immediately arrested and referred to Mansoura Criminal Court for the premeditated murder of Ashraf. According to a statement by the prosecutor’s office, the young man confessed to the killing over a dispute with Ashraf after she rejected his marriage proposal. On July 6, 2022, the court sentenced Adel to death after listening to the testimonies of 25 people, including students and university guards who witnessed the stabbing.
Adel’s body was moved to a hospital in Mansoura in preparation for his burial at the family cemetery in the Gharbia governorate. His uncle, Mohamed Amara, spoke to local media on Wednesday, saying that the family sought to stop the execution and wanted Adel referred to a mental hospital.
The gruesome murder of Ashraf sent shockwaves across the country and caused an uproar among activists at a time when crimes against women were on the rise.
A study by the Edraak Foundation for Development and Equality, an Egyptian nongovernmental organization, recorded 813 crimes of violence against women and girls in Egypt in 2021 — 296 of which were murders. This is in comparison to 415 murders in all of 2020, according to the same study.
Less than two months after Ashraf's murder, 20-year-old Salma Bahgat was stabbed to death by a fellow student in the city of Zagazig, northeast of Cairo, after she rejected his advances.
In September 2022, Amani Abdul-Karim al-Gazzar, 19, was shot to death by her neighbor, 29-year-old Ahmad Fathi Ameirah, in front of her family home in a village in the Menoufia governorate. She had reportedly refused to marry Ameirah.
In October 2022, Kholoud al-Sayyed Farouq Darwich, 20, was found dead at her home in the Port Said governorate. Local reports said she was suffocated to death by her former fiance after she broke up with him and refused to marry him. The perpetrator, who was not identified, had repeatedly threatened Darwich before committing his crime.
Last month, a man in the city of Tanta, 94 kilometers (58 miles) north of Cairo, stabbed his wife of three days after she reportedly refused to have sexual intercourse with him.
The crime of premeditated murder is punishable by the death penalty in the Egyptian Penal Code. In Adel’s case, the court had called for amending the law to make his execution public as deterrence. The calls, however, were ignored.
In September 2022, a criminal court in Giza sentenced to death a senior judge for killing his wife, TV presenter Shaimaa Gamal. Ayman Haggag had reported his wife missing in June of that year. She was found dead days later at a farm with signs of blows and suffocation to her body. A friend of Haggag turned himself in to the police and confessed to helping the judge murder his wife.
According to Amnesty International, Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia were responsible for 90% of the world’s executions outside of China. In 2022, the North African country executed 24 people.
