▲ Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri
Lebanon has become the first Middle Eastern nation to completely abolish the death penalty.
The Lebanese parliament passed a bill on the 11th (local time) abolishing capital punishment with a majority vote among the 128 total lawmakers, excluding those affiliated with the armed group Hezbollah, replacing the penalty with life imprisonment accompanied by aggravated hard labor.
The office of the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament announced, "The bill aimed at abolishing the death penalty within Lebanon has been finally passed following some amendments."
Lebanese Minister of Justice Adel Nassar, who attended the parliamentary vote, hailed the abolition of the death penalty as a "historic step forward," and human rights organizations that have long called for its complete abolition also welcomed the voting results.
Lebanon, a small nation along the Mediterranean coast, had unofficially suspended executions since January 2004.
However, dozens of death sentences had been handed down even after that time, and those rulings were subsequently stayed or commuted.
According to the Corrections Department of the Lebanese Ministry of Justice, there were 85 death row inmates in Lebanon as of the end of January 2026.
The Lebanese Association for Civil Rights (LACR), the National Campaign for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Lebanon, and the Association for Justice and Mercy (AJEM) have led the movement to abolish capital punishment.
Seven lawmakers proposed the related bill to the parliamentary human rights committee on October 7 of last year, and following the government's public comment procedure, the cabinet expressed its approval on November 20, 2025.
Subsequently, the bill passed through the parliamentary human rights committee on February 23 of this year, as well as the judiciary and joint committees, before receiving final approval in the plenary session today.
To establish the abolition of the death penalty as an irreversible measure in accordance with international human rights law, Lebanon must ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
Heba Morayef, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Regional Director, commented, "The decision to abolish the death penalty is a major milestone and victory in Lebanon's human rights history," adding, "Justice must be rooted in human rights, not in irreversible and cruel punishments."
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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