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Pardon to Death? Djamila Bouhired last week was in solitary confinement in the massively grim Barberousse fortress, overlooking the city of Algiers. All legal appeals have failed, and unless she is pardoned by President Coty of France, she will walk to the guillotine as have 127 other Algerians in the 3½-year rebellion. Outraged at the dubious procedures of her trial, French newspapers from the Communist L'Humanite to the conservative Le Figaro to the right-wing L'Aurore are protesting her coming execution. India's Nehru, Tunisia's Bourguiba, Russia's Voroshilov have appealed for clemency as have writers, labor leaders, professors, bishops and philosophers from Norway to Switzerland to Lebanon.
The French, traditionally, are reluctant to guillotine women. But the guillotine is not the only way a person can die. Said her lawyer: "If pardoned by President Coty, Djamila Bouhired is likely to be sent to a prison camp in a barren region bordering on the Sahara, and there will be little trouble finding another 'medical expert' to testify that her death was due to 'natural causes.' "