Coalition mondiale contre la peine de mort - Getting to know of Arab abolitionists - Arabic World

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Getting to know of Arab abolitionists

Posted by Thomas Hubert on 2007/5/15 14:20:00 (10376 reads)

Apart from Djibouti, no Arab country has as yet abolished the death penalty in law. Nevertheless, the states located in the western part of the Arab world have not carried out any executions during the last ten years.
Lawyers, intellectuals and religious leaders believe that the death penalty is no longer part of the modern Arab world. National networks are being formed in countries such as Morocco and the Lebanon.
These isolated initiatives would be more concrete if their actors could make contact to work together and share their experiences. To support them in this venture, the World Coalition first needs to know them better. In 2007, it has therefore carried out research to list them and identifying their strategies.

A directory and new strategies

The World Coalition started by creating an exhaustive list of all abolitionist actors in the countries that belong to the Arab League: NGOs, judges, religious leaders, politicians, journalists, academics, lawyers, bar associations, human rights associations etc. With their agreement, the World Coalition will make their contact details and information on their work (campaigns, publications, etc.) available to other Arab campaigners to encourage collaboration.
Moreover, questionnaires and interviews on their strategies, their choices and the obstacles encountered in the struggle against the death penalty were used to formulate recommendations to help them to work together and to better support them in the fight for abolition.

A duet at work

The World Coalition has accorded Mona Chamass and her assistant Muriel Barbary the responsibility of carrying out this research.
Mona Chamass, who is French-Lebanese, worked for 11 years on the Arab world. She has lived in the Lebanon and in Yemen. Over the last few years, her main work as Arab World co-ordinator for the NGO Penal Reform International, a member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, involved exploration of criminal law in the region.
Muriel Barbary is a graduate in Arabic from the Inalco Institute and holds a master’s degree in international humanitarian action from Aix-Marseille University. She has worked with asylum seekers in French and Lebanese associations.
The results of their work is available for download from this website.

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