Prisoners held in one room in Roumieh Central Prison, 2023. © Amnesty International
recently strengthened calls for the death
sentence to be enforced. Yet, since 1997, a
strong abolitionist movement has also
emerged in the country.
Nevertheless, in today's particularly volatile
political climate, marked by the
unprecedented popular uprising in 2019 and
the devastating explosion in the port of
Beirut, it is not clear what the future will hold
in relation to the death penalty in Lebanon.
Foreign Nationals
Many foreign nationals work in Lebanon
under the exploitative kafala system. As
elsewhere in the region, foreign nationals
often face greater barriers accessing justice.
In 2020, ECPM reported that at least 20
foreign nationals had been sentenced to
death and imprisoned, the majority for
murder charges. Most of the prisoners (13
out of 20) were Syrian nationals, the others
were Sri Lankan (3), Palestinian (2), Egyptian
(1) and Iraqi (1). The Sri Lankan prisoners
were all women, migrant domestic workers
with restricted access to legal support.
Although Lebanon has rati ed the Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations, which
grants consular authorities the right to legally
represent their nationals, 11 of the 20 foreign
prisoners sentenced to death, have not had
contact with their consulate, as reported by
ECPM.
Death Penalty Research Unit, University of Oxford
For more research see:
fi
foreign-nationals.uwazi.io or tinyurl.com/mappingdeathrow