BEIRUT: While the death penalty has not been carried out in Lebanon since 2004, activists worry it could be used again soon, and that it could trigger a sectarian tit-for-tat execution battle.
At a workshop Thursday, human rights organizations provided media with up-to-date information on the death penalty in a bid to increase support for the campaign to advocate abolition of capital punishment.
During Thursday’s final session of a two-day workshop, organized by Penal Reform International and Alef, the coordinator of the National Campaign for the Abolition of Death Penalty in Lebanon Tanya Ghorra gave participants an overview of the situation in the country.
Ghorra explained that the debate has stagnated, and is treated as a “status quo” issue. It is no longer seriously discussed, she said, as the last execution was carried out in 2004.
An alternative law drafted by the campaign and approved by the Cabinet is yet to be examined in Parliament.
The problem, Ghorra said, is that “since there hasn’t been an execution in years, it’s not a hot topic.”
But she believesthe situation might change in the near future as the military tribunal has recently requested the death penalty against several people on espionage charges, including assisting the Israeli Army.
Under Lebanese law, individual cases of carrying out the death penalty require the approval of the president, the speaker of Parliament and the prime minister.
Last year President Michel Sleiman said he would sign death penalties against those convicted of spying for Israel, if issued by the judiciary. Speaker Nabih Berri has signed penalties in the past. But Ghorra said Prime Minister Najib Mikati hasn’t himself commented on the subject since being appointed, and could possibly block the process.
But she also said that because of the sensitive nature of the charges, the death penalty might end up being carried out for the first time in many years.
Unfortunately she said, because of the factor of the unspoken “sectarian balance” in death penalties in Lebanon, if the executions of any of the convicted spies take place, some of the other 52 convicts who have been sentenced to the death penalty may also be executed.
“If the convicted is a Muslim they will find a Christian to execute at the same time,” she said, saying the practice came from an idea of “equality.”
Although it is difficult to estimate the level of popular support for the abolition of capital punishment, a survey conducted by the campaign group in 2009 among MPs showed that 74 percent supported an “immediate or gradual abolition of the death penalty,” Ghorra said, adding that, perhaps surprisingly, all of the Hezbollah MPs were among supporters.
Hezbollah has repeatedly called for the death penalty for all suspects convicted of spying for Israel.
Lebanon has been refraining from signing a U.N. moratorium against the death penalty since its creation in 2007, but has also never definitively opposed it, contrary to most Arab countries.
The main official reason for not signing the moratorium, Ghorra explained, is that it “might hurt some of the Lebanese citizens’ beliefs,” an argument based on an incorrect belief that abolishing the death penalty would be contrary to Islam.
To this day, 51 prisoners have been executed since the country’s independence in 1943, and of the 52 currently sentenced to death, 48 are being held in Roumieh prison, the country’s largest.
Some of the convicted have been jailed for more than 20 years without knowing from day to day whether or not they’ll be executed tomorrow.
At a workshop Thursday, human rights organizations provided media with up-to-date information on the death penalty in a bid to increase support for the campaign to advocate abolition of capital punishment.
During Thursday’s final session of a two-day workshop, organized by Penal Reform International and Alef, the coordinator of the National Campaign for the Abolition of Death Penalty in Lebanon Tanya Ghorra gave participants an overview of the situation in the country.
Ghorra explained that the debate has stagnated, and is treated as a “status quo” issue. It is no longer seriously discussed, she said, as the last execution was carried out in 2004.
An alternative law drafted by the campaign and approved by the Cabinet is yet to be examined in Parliament.
The problem, Ghorra said, is that “since there hasn’t been an execution in years, it’s not a hot topic.”
But she believesthe situation might change in the near future as the military tribunal has recently requested the death penalty against several people on espionage charges, including assisting the Israeli Army.
Under Lebanese law, individual cases of carrying out the death penalty require the approval of the president, the speaker of Parliament and the prime minister.
Last year President Michel Sleiman said he would sign death penalties against those convicted of spying for Israel, if issued by the judiciary. Speaker Nabih Berri has signed penalties in the past. But Ghorra said Prime Minister Najib Mikati hasn’t himself commented on the subject since being appointed, and could possibly block the process.
But she also said that because of the sensitive nature of the charges, the death penalty might end up being carried out for the first time in many years.
Unfortunately she said, because of the factor of the unspoken “sectarian balance” in death penalties in Lebanon, if the executions of any of the convicted spies take place, some of the other 52 convicts who have been sentenced to the death penalty may also be executed.
“If the convicted is a Muslim they will find a Christian to execute at the same time,” she said, saying the practice came from an idea of “equality.”
Although it is difficult to estimate the level of popular support for the abolition of capital punishment, a survey conducted by the campaign group in 2009 among MPs showed that 74 percent supported an “immediate or gradual abolition of the death penalty,” Ghorra said, adding that, perhaps surprisingly, all of the Hezbollah MPs were among supporters.
Hezbollah has repeatedly called for the death penalty for all suspects convicted of spying for Israel.
Lebanon has been refraining from signing a U.N. moratorium against the death penalty since its creation in 2007, but has also never definitively opposed it, contrary to most Arab countries.
The main official reason for not signing the moratorium, Ghorra explained, is that it “might hurt some of the Lebanese citizens’ beliefs,” an argument based on an incorrect belief that abolishing the death penalty would be contrary to Islam.
To this day, 51 prisoners have been executed since the country’s independence in 1943, and of the 52 currently sentenced to death, 48 are being held in Roumieh prison, the country’s largest.
Some of the convicted have been jailed for more than 20 years without knowing from day to day whether or not they’ll be executed tomorrow.
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