World Day Against the Death Penalty took place earlier this month, October 10, and has stimulated conversation on capital punishment in Jordan.

The death penalty in Jordan has long divided opinion, and opposition voices have grown after the government announced it was resuming the death penalty in 2014, after banning it for almost eight years.

In the kingdom, the number of executions since 2014 has been 11 cases. In 2015 two people were executed, and in 2017, 15 people have been executed to date. Ten of the cases were charged with terrorism offenses.

“I can’t agree with ending the life of anyone because he committed a crime, whatever the crime was, and the chance of announcing a mistaken sentence is a responsibility nobody should carry,” Leen Al Khayyat told Roya, a lawyer and human rights activist.

Khayyat believes there are more effective ways to deal with criminals. When asked what steps could be taken to convince government to abolish the death penalty, she said that Jordan needs to launch plans and effective programs to rehabilitate criminals so they can re-enter society.

Speaking October 10 at the UN Headquarters in New York, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, called to abolish the death penalty, confirming it had no place in the 21st century. He called on all countries which have not forbidden the extreme practice, to urgently stop executions.

Guterres praised the decision taken by 170 countries to halt or abolish the death penalty, most recently Gambia and Madagascar. He also mentioned that rates of executions in 2016 had decreased by 37%, when compared in 2015.

“Today just four countries are responsible for 87% of all recorded executions," he added. Another UN official said those four countries are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

In terms of the Middle East, only Djibouti abolished the death penalty in 1995. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia had the highest rate of executions, at 154, followed by Iraq, which executed an estimated 88 people.

Additionally, Egypt executed more than 44 people, Somalia, 14 people, and Gaza has executed at least four people, according to Amnesty International.