Death Penalty
No executions have been carried out since 2006. Amendments to the Penal Code have reduced the number of capital offenses. State security, smuggling, arson resulting in death, and inciting armed riot cases are no longer capital crimes. In March 2010, the Justice Minister announced that the crime of rape may cease to be a capital offense. In the future it is possible that the death penalty will be limited to cases of murder.
At the end of 2010 the government reports that 46 people were under sentence of death and six new death sentences were imposed during the year. Amnesty International reports nine new death sentences in 2010.
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Jordan
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or penalty:
“I asked myself, “Is it going to prevent me from getting out of here? Is there a risk of death attached to it? Is it permanently disabling? Is it permanently disfiguring? Lastly, is it excruciating?” If it doesn’t fit one of those five categories, then it isn’t important.”
—Rhonda Cornum, United States Army Major. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, “Perspectives” page (July 13, 1992)
“Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men; and the like regret is suggested to all the auditors, as the penalty of abstaining to speak,—that they shall hear worse orators than themselves.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)