Lebanon becomes the first in the Middle East to drop the death penalty
In a surprising legal pivot, the Middle East just saw its first country officially close the book on state-sanctioned executions.
Lawmakers in Lebanon finally put an end to capital punishment, officially replacing it with life imprisonment at hard labor. It is a massive pivot for the region, where this kind of thing usually stays on the books forever. Adel Nasar, the justice minister, says it is not about going soft on crime, but about rejecting state-sanctioned killing entirely. He claims that taking away someone's freedom for life is actually the tougher sentence anyway.
The move clears up a major diplomatic headache too. Now, other countries that have already ditched the death penalty don't have to stress about extraditing fugitives back to a place that might execute them. The country hasn't actually carried out an execution in over two decades, so this basically makes their long-standing habit of not killing people an official law.
It turns out that not killing people is apparently the new gold standard for international relations.
Source: UPI
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