Lebanon's parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty, a move that would make it the first country in the Middle East to formally end capital punishment. Under the new legislation, capital punishment will be replaced with life imprisonment with hard labour. As co-founder of the Lebanese Association for Civil Rights, she led a nearly three-decade campaign to abolish the death penalty in Lebanon. Previous attempts to abolish the death penalty have failed, including legislation introduced in parliament in 2004 and a proposal from the justice ministry in 2008. Lebanon's move comes as the use of the death penalty remains contested elsewhere in the Middle East.