{"id":246142,"date":"2026-08-12T12:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/246142\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T12:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:28:12","slug":"lebanon-parliament-votes-to-abolish-death-penalty-hezbollah-bloc-votes-against-how-69-outlets-framed-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/246142\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon Parliament Votes To Abolish Death Penalty, Hezbollah Bloc Votes Against: how 69 outlets framed it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lebanon ends capital punishment<\/p>\n

Justice Minister Adel Nassar, who was in parliament, called the vote \u201ca historic step\u201d for the country, and the new system replaces the death sentence with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"ABCABC News<\/a><\/p>\n

The legislation formalizes a de facto moratorium, since Lebanon has not carried out any executions since January 17, 2004, even as courts continued to issue dozens of death sentences.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International\u2019s Heba Morayef praised the change as \u201ca major milestone and a victory for human rights in the country,\u201d while noting that it transforms a precarious hiatus into \u201clasting legal protection\u201d upholding the right to life.<\/p>\n

At the end of 2025, 85 people were facing death sentences, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Justice\u2019s Directorate of Prisons, and the new law\u2019s enforcement details for aggravated hard labour were described as unclear in the reporting.<\/p>\n

Opposition, rights groups, and process<\/p>\n

Rights group Amnesty International said the law\u2019s passage is \u201ca major turning point and a victory for human rights in the country,\u201d framing it as turning \u201ca cautious moratorium on executions into a lasting legal protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oragit Younan, co-founder of the Lebanese Association for Civil Rights, told the BBC, \u201cWe cannot solve a crime with a crime or end violence with violence,\u201d describing the nearly three-decade campaign to abolish the death penalty.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"AlAl Jazeera<\/a><\/p>\n

The BBC reported that the legislation would go to the cabinet before being passed to President Joseph Aoun for signing, and it said the government had already expressed its support for the measure.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah\u2019s parliamentary bloc voted against abolition, and the BBC said the legislation does not yet set out in detail how the new sentence would be enforced, even though hard labour is written into Lebanese law.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post quoted United Nations Human Rights chief Volker Turk saying, \u201cthis decision represents a powerful and principled commitment to the right to life,\u201d as the bill moved from parliament toward cabinet approval and then President Joseph Aoun\u2019s signature.<\/p>\n

What changes next for prisoners<\/p>\n

Amnesty International said Lebanon has not carried out any executions since January 17, 2004, and it reported that as of the end of January 2026, 85 people remain on death row according to the Directorate of Prisons at the Ministry of Justice.<\/p>\n

The BBC reported that courts have continued to hand down death sentences, and it said the abolition comes as parliament debates a controversial general amnesty law that could reduce sentences or release some people convicted of violence offences.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah opposed abolition in part by linking it to the general amnesty bill, and Ynetnews reported that Hezbollah explained its opposition by arguing that the death penalty should not be abolished before lawmakers complete work on the general amnesty bill.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International also said the law will be referred to the President for final signature and publication in the Official Gazette before it takes effect, and it urged Lebanese authorities to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to make abolition irrevocable under international human rights law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lebanon ends capital punishment Justice Minister Adel Nassar, who was in parliament, called the vote \u201ca historic step\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[32],"tags":[4660,93,68478,55736,7936,55735,55734],"class_list":["post-246142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lebanon","tag-global-politics","tag-lebanon","tag-lebanon-parliament-votes-to-abolish","tag-media-analysis","tag-media-bias","tag-news-compared","tag-news-comparison"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117082541869769404","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}