Jordanian Coalition against the Death Penalty determining its action plan for next year

Dr. Tahar Boumedra, PRI’s Regional Director for MENA, briefed the meeting on the ongoing DP campaign nationally, regionally and internationally. He first recalled that the campaign started in the MENA Region in March of this year by launching the Jordanian Coalition against the Death Penalty, followed by a number of national coalitions culminated by the setting of the regional coalition in July 2007.

Dr. Boumedra reviewed the main activities of the organization in the campaign challenging DP in the MENA Region within the framework of the global campaign led by the World Coalition against DP.

To highlight the main events that have taken place from July until now is the accession of Gabon, Rwanda and Mali to the group of countries that have abolished the death penalty. In addition, some Islamic countries, such as Turkey, joined the camp of abolitionists while Nigeria is debating the issue and might soon abolish DP.

He stressed that the strategy of the International Organization for Penal Reform at the Arab region level is to work on the reduction of the death sentence and to observe a moratorium for as long as there is a process of transformation taking place in legislative and judicial reform.

He pointed out that the most prominent developments now at the United Nations level are some actions currently being taken to halt the implementation of the death penalty. There is a draft recommendation that has been submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations, to issue a recommendation to all countries in the world to at least temporarily halt the implementation of the death penalty.

All of the attendees at the symposium agreed on the basic principles of the coalition and demanded the abolition of the death penalty in all its forms. They hope that this will be a first step for Jordan in abolishing the death penalty, which would be a first among the Arab countries. The basis of their position is that everyone has a legitimate right to life as a human, and because life is a gift of God, no one is entitled to revoke this right.

This position is despite public opinion, which says that the death penalty originates from Islamic sources of legislation. Yet public opinion ignores that the conditions to implement this Islamic legislation for the death penalty were so stringent as to make it almost impossible to implement.

The participants need to work and to aim at all levels so that the voice as a Jordanian coalition against the death penalty is heard through the media and the legislature (parliament). This voice should urge the government to abolish the death penalty and replace it with the penalty of life imprisonment.

The membership of the Jordanian Coalition against the Death Penalty includes more than 50 organizations including civil society, academic, educational, factional, unionist, judicial, and private organizations.