Egypt on February 20 hanged the nine men for the 2015 assassination of prosecutor general Hisham Barakat, despite pleas from human rights group Amnesty International. Around 40 EU and Arab leaders met after during a two-day summit which began on Sunday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh hosted by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “Can we talk about rights and freedoms over there?… It is not possible to understand them. The EU is not sincere.”Turkey-Egypt relations are almost non-existent since the Egyptian military, then led by Sisi, ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Erdogan, in 2013. Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2002 but since 2016, Erdogan has at times suggested the death penalty could be reinstated if a bill was approved by MPs.

Source: The Guardian February 26, 2019 13:30 UTC