Is Islamic law – Shariaa – the only legal instrument regulating the death penalty in Arab and Muslim countries?
“No, the death penalty in most Arab and Muslim countries is regulated and applied according to positive laws – man made law – and not according to Sharia’a,” says Tahar Boumedra, Penal Reform International’s (PRI) Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. In an interview with IPS journalist Baher Kamal, Boumedra explains how this issue was debated during a three-day regional conference on the death penalty, which ended in Alexandria on May 14. “Some delegates – they came from nine Arab countries – tried to use Islamic law to argue against the abolition of the death penalty,” says Boumedra. “But actually death penalty laws go far beyond anything Sharia’a law ever sought to impose.” The conference, co-organised by PRI and the Swedish Institute in Alexandria, issued the “Alexandria Declaration” calling for a moratorium on executions as a step towards abolishing the death penalty in the Arab region. IPS: The “Alexandria Declaration” calls on Arab states to comply with the U.N
