12 women on death row in Jordan — SIGI

AMMAN — Twelve women are facing the death penalty in Jordan, according to a Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI) statement issued on Tuesday. 

SIGI has been seeking tribal reconciliation, but the victims’ families have not dropped the charges and the convicts’ families have refused to pay restitution, the statement said.  

In 2016, 13 people were sentenced to death in the Kingdom. In 2017, the Kingdom saw 120 people on the death row, 12 of whom are women imprisoned in rehabilitation and correctional centres. 

After an eight-year moratorium on capital punishment, Jordan re-instated the death penalty at the end of 2014, when 11 convicts were executed by hanging. In early March 2017, Jordan conducted its largest mass execution with 15 convicts hanged for criminal and terrorist activities.

According to statistics by correctional and rehabilitation centres in Jordan, a total of 87,442  were detained in 2016, the same year saw the release of  87,964 people, including individuals kept in temporary custody and detention.  

SIGI cited the UN General Assembly’s December resolution suspending the death penalty. The resolution, which was proposed by 89 member countries, was approved by 117 countries, rejected by 40, while 31 nations abstained from voting. 

The resolution urges countries still carrying out death penalty to abolish capital punishment.