On Monday, 27 January 2021, the Court of First Instance of Deir al-Balah issued a death sentence by hanging against ‘A. Kh ‘A. (25), from Jabalia refugee camp, who was convicted of murdering A. ‘A. N., on grounds of a financial dispute in July 2017.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) expresses its full solidarity with the victims of murder crimes in Palestine and supports their rights to access justice and to an effective remedy.
In the meantime, PCHR insists on its position that the death penalty is not the only mean to achieve justice or deter those who may attempt to commit such crimes; rather, it is an inhumane way that contradicts with Palestine’s international legal obligations under the 1989 Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
This is the 2nd sentence of its kind in 2021 in the Gaza Strip. Thus, the total number of death sentences issued in Palestinian territory since 1994 reached 238; 30 in the West Bank and 208 in the Gaza Strip.
Among those issued in the Gaza Strip, 149 sentences were issued after the 2007 Palestinian political division.
Since the establishment of the PA, 41 death sentences were executed: 39 in the Gaza Strip, and two in the West Bank.
Of those executed in the Gaza Strip, 28 were carried out after 2007 without the ratification of the Palestinian President in violation of Palestinian law.
In this context, PCHR commends the Palestinian President’s position not to ratify any death sentence since 2005 and stresses the need to refrain from ratifying death sentences in a prelude to abolishing this punishment from the Palestinian legislations.
PCHR reminds the authorities in Gaza of Palestine’s international legal obligations under the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which obliges Palestine to suspend use of the death penalty as a prelude to its abolishment from Palestinian legislations.
Therefore, PCHR calls on the authorities in the Gaza Strip not to use the death penalty and replace it with a life sentence with hard labor.
PCHR also calls upon the Palestinian President to issue a law by decree to suspend the use of legal articles that permit the death penalty in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, until an elected legislative authority assumes the legislative power and abolishes it from Palestinian legislations.
Source: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Staff, February 1, 2021
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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
