Jordan executes 11 in lifting of capital punishment ban

AMMAN , Jordan, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Jordan's execution of 11 convicted murderers ended the county's eight-year suspension of capital punishment.

Interior Ministry spokesman Ziad Zubi announced, ""Eleven criminals convicted in different cases of murder were executed at dawn" by hanging after "all the required legal measures," the official Petra news agency reported Sunday. Each was a Jordanian citizen. Since the previous execution, in 2006, 122 people have received death sentences for crimes including murder, rape and treason.

The executions occurred at the Swaqa corrections center, 60 miles from the capital of Amman.

Interior Minister Hussein Majali said last month Jordan's death penalty policies were under review, saying ""the public believes that the rise in crime has been the result of the non-application" of capital punishment. Although the country is regarded as among the safest in the Middle East, the number of felonies rose from 24,700 in 2009 to 33,800 in 2013, the Department of Statistics reported.

Many Middle Eastern countries impose the death penalty; Saudi Arabia has executed 83 people thus far this year.

"Reviving this inherently cruel form of punishment is another way Jordan is backsliding on human rights, Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East program of the activist group Human Rights Watch said in a statement Sunday.