Lebanon's parliament voted on Tuesday to abolish the death penalty, making it the first country in the Arab world to replace the sentence with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labor. This was reported by infohub.kz.
The small Mediterranean country has maintained an unofficial moratorium on executions since January 2004. However, dozens of death sentences have been issued since then, but later suspended or commuted.
A majority of Lebanon's 128-member parliament voted in favor of ending the death penalty, with the exception of the parliamentary bloc of Hezbollah. Justice Minister Adel Nassar, who was in Parliament, called it a "historic step" for the country. Rights groups that have called for formalizing the moratorium or ending the death penalty altogether also celebrated the vote.
Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon Researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Lebanon is "marking a final break from a cruel sentence that should never be imposed." "Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality and is plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error," he added.
It remains unclear how aggravated hard labor would be enforced, as some legislators said the terms of the new punishment are not yet clear. Lebanon does have hard labor written into law, but it has been rarely enforced in recent years due to the country's financial crisis and overcrowded prisons.
The abolition comes as parliament debates a controversial general amnesty law, the largest since the end of its 15-year civil war in 1990, which could reduce sentences or release convicted militants and drug dealers.
Family members of Lebanese soldiers and servicemen killed or attacked by Islamist militant groups have repeatedly protested against the law, some saying they had hoped to see the perpetrators executed rather than receive reduced sentences.
Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the landmark vote. Neither did Lebanon's diverse religious institutions, where the death penalty is considered legal in some of their respective court systems.