Lebanon abolishes the death penalty: first Middle East country to do so

Lebanon’s Parliament approved this Tuesday, August 11, a bill to abolish the death penalty, making the country the first in the Middle East to formally remove capital punishment from its legislation. The vote, confirmed by the official ANN agency and picked up by EFE, passed by a majority in the 128-seat Chamber.

What changes with the law

With the approval, Lebanese courts will no longer be able to hand down death sentences. The new legislation establishes that crimes committed before it takes effect will be punished with life imprisonment, and those after, with aggravated life imprisonment, according to the Lebanese National News Agency (ANN).

Lebanon has maintained a de facto moratorium on capital punishment since January 2004 and has not executed anyone since that year. However, courts continued handing down death sentences that were later suspended or commuted.

A bill that almost failed

The text was rejected on July 16, when the withdrawal of the Lebanese Forces parliamentary bloc prevented a vote. This week it returned as a priority agenda item and, after several amendments, received the backing of the majority: only the Hezbollah bloc stayed aside, according to The Times of Israel.

The Justice Minister, Adel Nassar, called the vote a “historic step” and defended the law before those who see it as leniency: “Deprivation of liberty is not leniency”, he said, according to the ANN agency.

The regional context

The decision comes in a region where capital punishment remains in force in most countries. On the same August 11, a Syrian court sentenced former president Bashar al Assad to death in absentia for war crimes —a reminder that Lebanon is taking the opposite path from its neighbors.

Human rights organizations welcomed the vote, which formalizes a moratorium that had been in practice for more than two decades.

The key figure: 2004. The last year Lebanon executed a convict. Since then, abolition was a promise; this Tuesday it became law.