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U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

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Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 

EU Missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemn death sentences issued in Gaza

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The European Union Representative and the EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemned on Thursday the death sentences issued in the Gaza Strip on 9 September against 2 Palestinians convicted of murder.

A statement by the Missions said the EU considers capital punishment to be "cruel and inhuman" and therefore "abolition of the death penalty contributes to the protection of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights."

They called on the "de facto authorities in Gaza" to "refrain from carrying out any executions of prisoners and comply with the moratorium on executions put in place by the Palestinian Authority, pending the abolition of the death penalty in line with the global trend and following the signing of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

Gaza courts issued 2 separate death sentences on September 9 against 2 people convicted of murder in Gaza City and Khan Younis in the south, in addition to 2 life terms in the Khan Younis case for murdering a money changer in 2013.

This is the fourth death sentence issued in Gaza since 2018, according to the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which also said that 204 death sentences, not including the latest 2, were issued since the inception of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, 174 of them in the Gaza Strip, including 116 issued by the de facto Hamas authority since its takeover of the coastal enclave in 2007, and 30 in the West Bank.

It said 41 sentences were executed since 1994, among them 39 in Gaza, of which 28 were executed by Hamas without the ratification of President Mahmoud Abbas as required by law, and 2 in West Bank.

Source: Palestinian News Agency, September 29, 2018


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Gaza Strip
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