WORLD : 4 Hangings Spark S. Africa Protests
<i> From Times wire service</i> s
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —
Four people, including a 22-year-old woman, were hanged today, provoking fresh calls from church and civil rights groups for an end to the death penalty.
A Justice Ministry spokesman said the four, all convicted murderers, were sent to the gallows inside Pretoria Central Prison at dawn.
It was the first execution of a woman for more than two years in South Africa, which the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International says has the world’s third highest official execution rate after Iran and Iraq.
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