In Sunday’s newspaper issues, Egyptian writers commented on the execution of nine prisoners convicted of the 2015 assassination of Egypt’s former Prosecutor General, Hisham Barakat. Others followed the EU-Arab summit in Sharm el-Sheikh which kicked off on Sunday.
The nine were among the 28 defendants who were sentenced to death in 2017, as they were accused for the car bomb attack in front of Barakat’s house in Cairo.
Mohamed Amin of Al-Masry Al-Youm denounced what he called as ‘defence’ by Amnesty International for the accused in the Barakat’s case. Amin wrote that it is impossible to tolerate this, with the assassination of Barakat, wondering if they consider killing innocents as freedom of speech.
Amin pointed out that the international organisation always proves that it does not stand for countries, but for people who mess with those countries. He added that the organisation does not defend freedoms, rather it defends chaos.
Moreover, in Al-Masry Al-Youm, Dina Abdel Karim noted that she hoped that Egyptians could restore the trust in their country, and avoid the confusion between killers and martyrs.
Abdel Karim argued that some societies suffered from years of “confusion” regarding the concept of justice and the rule of law, which resulted, she noted, in complexity in defining who is the criminal.
Meanwhile, Karim Abdel Salam of Al-Youm Al-Sabaa wrote that the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood rushed to social media from Turkey, London, and Qatar to spread lies over the prisoners who were executed for assassinating Barakat.
Abdel Salam noted that MB members turned to revive the false grievance that they are killed without trails in Egypt, which he described as simply false.
In other ways, Hossam El Sokkary of Al-Shorouk argued that conducting executions do not reduce the number of murders, according to various statics. He referred to a study in 2002 by Columbia University which examined over 5,000 cases that included the execution sentence, and showed that more than two-thirds of those sentences contained inaccuracies.
On the other hand, Mohamed Barakat of Al-Akhbar wrote that the EU-Arab summit received attention from 21 Arab countries and other 28 European nations.
Barakat mentioned that issues of counterterrorism, climate change, illegal immigration, African armed conflicts and restoring peace in Libya and Syria are among the topics to be addressed during the summit.
Furthermore, in Al-Akhbar, Galal Dowidar noted that no one can deny Egypt’s achievements in establishing its position regionally and internationally. Dowidar added that such accomplishments resulted in Egypt’s success in combating terrorism and restoring its stability and security.