By Dr. Siby K. Joseph
Lebanon created a new history on August 11, 2026, by abolishing the death penalty. It was the result of a long struggle spanning almost three decades. It happened after 22 years of a de facto moratorium on executions. August 11, 2026, is a historic date for human rights in Lebanon because the country became the 114th State in the world to ban it for all crimes. What is more significant is that it is the first country in the whole Middle East to do so.
Though the world media broadcasted this unique achievement of Lebanon, two prominent nonviolent personalities who largely contributed to this victory were not brought into the limelight: Ogarit Younan and Walid Slaiby. This achievement is the culmination of a nonviolent civil campaign launched in 1997 by these pioneers of abolition in Lebanon. The campaign’s principal strategist, Walid Slaiby, could not survive to see the fruits of his action. He passed away three years ago. However, during the debates that preceded the vote, many members of parliament paid tribute to him, quoting some of his writings on the death penalty.
Even after the passing of Walid Slaiby, Dr. Ogarit Younan carried on the mission. The bill on the abolition of the death penalty was submitted to parliament by Ogarit Younan on October 7, 2025, on behalf of the Lebanese Association for Civil Rights (LACR) and co-signed by seven MPs, viz. Michel Moussa, Paula Yacoubian, Georges Okaiss, Faysal Sayegh, Oussama Saad, Elias Hankach, and Halima Kaakour. It was the bill submitted by LACR in October 2025 — a text that was debated and then adopted, with some amendments, on August 11. Additionally, they remember and pay tribute to the memory of the members of Lebanon’s abolitionist movement who passed away before the mission came into fruition: Father Hadi Al-Ayya, Mr. Samir Al-Halabi, Mr. Nehme Jumaa, and Ms. Nada Al-Adhami.
The credit goes to all partners in the process and activists who stood firmly in this historic mission. LACR acknowledged its debt to the Movement for the Rights of People, which coordinated the campaign for many years, to the Lebanese Coalition against the Death Penalty and its most committed members, and to our international partners, in particular ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty, France) and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP).
After the vote, Ogarit Younan gathered the seven MPs in front of the parliament chamber, together with LACR members, young activists, and Antoinette Chahine — an activist and former death-row inmate. On the steps of Parliament, she unfurled a banner declaring, in Arabic and English, that in 2026 Lebanon has abolished the death penalty.
Dr. Ogarit Younan stated:
“The most important thing was to preserve the first article of this law: the definitive abolition of the death penalty from all Lebanese legal texts. The law’s other articles will still need to be further developed and revised, since forced labor and life imprisonment must also be abolished and replaced with humane alternatives. I also regret the confusion created by the “amnesty law”, which clouded the debate.”
“What happened on August 11 is not just an amendment to a law or the adoption of a new one: it is a clear and firm commitment to strip the law and political authority of the power to kill. The death penalty kills, and we cannot accept being citizens of a State of gallows — we want a civilized State that protects life, addresses the root causes of crime, guarantees victims’ rights, and rehabilitates offenders. This is the heart of our struggle, one we have spent years instilling in society, and today the law makes it real. Congratulations to Lebanon, whose justice system has acknowledged it will no longer kill in the name of the death penalty.”
“We did it! Finally, the death penalty is abolished in Lebanon,” Dr. Younan wrote to partners and associates of the International Fellowship Program on Nonviolence and Peace on August 20, expressing her feelings while Lebanon faces a chaotic situation and a war that has claimed thousands of lives since this past March.
The Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation honored Ogarit Younan and Walid Slaiby, pioneers of non-violence in Lebanon and the Arab world, by bestowing the International Award for Promoting Gandhian Values Abroad in 2022. I had the privilege of meeting and interacting with them in Gandhi’s ashram at Sevagram following the award ceremony in Mumbai. The university founded by them, the Academic University for Nonviolence and Human Rights,Lebanon joined the Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan as an official partner of the International Fellowship Program on Nonviolence and Peace. Congratulations to Ogarit for keeping the flame of Gandhian nonviolence alive in Lebanon.
About the Author:
Dr. Siby K. Joseph is an academic and Gandhian scholar serving as the Director of the International Fellowship Program on Nonviolence and Peace pioneered by Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan, Wardha, India
