CONGRATULATIONS to abolitionists all over the world.
August 11, 2026, will stand in history as a great day for Lebanon, which has just abolished the death penalty and provided a pioneering model in the region.
After a 22-year de facto moratorium on executions, it has successfully secured its place among the 113 countries in the world that have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, becoming the 114th country on the global map of capital punishment abolition.
Lebanon has become the first abolitionist country in the Middle East and the second in the Arab world (after Djibouti), thereby paving the way for other countries—especially those under a decades-long moratorium—to do the same and permanently abolish the death penalty.
This historic victory would not have been possible without the launch, in 1997, of the first nationwide nonviolent campaign in the country’s history, celebrated as unprecedented, visionary, spectacular, and courageous in its efforts. It was founded by the pioneers of death penalty abolition in Lebanon, Ogarit Younan and Walid Slaybi, two nonviolent thinkers and activists who had been working together since 1983. Sadly, Slaybi passed away three years ago, before being able to witness the fruits of his inspiring abolitionist journey.
Congratulations to Lebanon, to all the activists who have championed this cause for years, to the Movement for People’s Rights which coordinated the campaign over many years, and to the Lebanese Coalition Against the Death Penalty—comprising 84 parties and associations—particularly its members who continued to take action in favor of abolition.
Congratulations as well to all our partners across the region and around the world, especially as we have been members of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP) since its founding in 2002, participating in all World Congresses from the first in Strasbourg in 2001 to the most recent in Paris in 2026. This was the fruit of a partnership with the French organization ECPM, with whom we have developed several projects since 2000 and which contributed concretely to strengthening abolitionist action in Lebanon.
Regarding the bill passed in Parliament on August 11, it was submitted to Parliament by Ogarit Younan on October 7, 2025, on behalf of the LACR, signed by seven MPs from various political factions: Michel Moussa, Paula Yacoubian, Georges Okaiss, Faysal Saegh, Oussama Saad, Elias Hankach, and Halima Kaakour. First, it was backed by the Council of Ministers through an official decision on November 20, 2025—a first in Lebanon for a government to place a bill abolishing the death penalty on its agenda. Next, it was approved by the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee on February 23, 2026, then by the Parliamentary Administration and Justice Committee on June 2, 2026, followed by the Joint Parliamentary Committees on July 9, 2026, and finally approved with amendments proposed by the various committees and voted on by the General Assembly of the Lebanese Parliament on August 11, 2026.
Regarding this enacted law, Younan states: “The most important thing was not to touch the first article of our draft law, which states that the death penalty is abolished in all Lebanese legal texts once and for all. That was the essential part, whereas other articles of the enacted law imperative need to be revised later, as ‘hard labor’ and ‘life imprisonment’ should be abolished from the law and replaced with humane alternatives.”
During the plenary debates of the parliamentary session that approved the abolition law, numerous MPs expressed their gratitude for the pioneering and steadfast role of Ogarit Younan, author of the draft law, and paid tribute to the late Walid Slaybi, recalling some of his statements and arguments drawn from his books on the death penalty.
Following the passage of the law, applause erupted in the parliament chamber. Younan then invited the 7 MPs to gather outside the parliament building, where she unfurled a banner she had hidden in her handbag, on which the LACR had written in Arabic and English: ‘We are in 2026 – Lebanon has abolished the death penalty.’ Even though any demonstration is forbidden at this site and security officers did everything to prevent this symbolic gathering and even the taking of photos, she insisted on celebrating this historic moment with a commemorative photo on the parliament steps. (See: Photo)
In a press release following this success, Younan declared that “what happened on August 11 is not merely the adoption of a new law, but a clear and firm commitment to strip the power to kill from the hands of the law and political authority, because the death penalty kills, and we cannot accept being citizens in a ‘State of gallows’; we fight for a civilized State that governs by protecting life, addressing the root causes of crime, guaranteeing victims’ rights, and rehabilitating perpetrators. This is the heart of our struggle, and we have dedicated years to instilling this nonviolent culture in society… Congratulations to Lebanon for a justice system that recognized it will no longer kill in the name of the death penalty.”
The abolition of the death penalty is an extraordinary achievement in the history of any nation; as the LACR highlights, it would have wished for this step forward to be achieved under better conditions in Lebanon, while the country is enduring a chaotic crisis and especially a war in which thousands of people have been killed and entire regions devastated by Israel since last March.
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Article by the Lebanese Association for Civil Rights – LACR
Founded in 2003 by Walid Slaybi and Ogarit Younan, it is the leading association of the National Campaign for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Lebanon.
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