Ref: 43/2014
Date: 17 April 2014
Date: 12:30 GMT
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) follows up with deep concern the sentence issued by the Military Court in Gaza convicting 12 persons, who work in the Ramallah government’s security services of charges of “undermining the revolutionary unity” as stipulated in the 1979 Revolutionary Penal Code. PCHR believes that these sentences are part of using law in political bickering due to the division.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, the Military Court in Gaza issued during its session on 14 April 2014 in Case No. (11/2012) a ruling convicting 12 persons who are members of the security services of the Ramallah government of undermining the revolutionary unity according to Articles (178 and 124) of the 1979 Revolutionary Penal Code. The sentences, 3 of which were issued in absentia ranged, between 1 to 5 years, were issued against: Sha’aban ‘Abdullah Sha’aban al-Gherbawi; ‘Omer Fawzi Salem Hammad; Rezeqallah Hamdi Salamah al-Nahal; Bassam Hatim ‘Abdel Rahman al-Qeishawi; Shadi Ahmed Shaker Shahin; Shadi ‘Abdel Karim Kamel al-Ja’abari; Osmah Ibrahim ‘Abdullah ‘Abdel Rahman; Sami Jaber Mohammed al-Nakhalah; Mahmoud Kamel Jamil al-Buheisi; Mohammed Shehdah Soliman Abu ‘Amrah; ‘Alaa’ Majed Mohammed Siyam; and Hussein Akram Hussein Mtair.
Eyad al-Bozom, spokesperson of the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, said in a press statement published on the Ministry’s website that sentences against the aforementioned persons were issed according to the law claiming that “the convicted persons provided sensitive and serious information to Ramallah security forces regarding resistance activity in the Gaza Strip, its weapons and tunnels and information given about the houses of resistance members and other information threatening the security and stability of the Gaza Strip population.”
A brother of one of the convicted persons said to PCHR’s Legal Unit that “on 19 April 2012, officers of the Internal Security Service (ISS) raided and searched our house in Gaza and then arrested my brother, Bassam Hatim al-Qeishawi (33), an officer of the Preventive Security Services in Ramallah. He was then taken to the ISS’s office in Ansar Complex for interrogation and was accused of “undermining the revolutionary unity”.
On 24 March 2013, he was released on bail of 500 Jordanian dinars according to a decision issued by the Permanent Military Court in Gaza. Following several sessions, the court during its session on 14 April 2014 sentenced his brother to 3 years of imprisonment taking in consideration the detention period.
PCHR emphasizes that the aforementioned sentences are part of the political bickering arising from the state of division in the Palestinian Authority since 2007 during which both governments in the Gaza Strip and West Bank use different means of law to violate rights and restrict freedoms. PCHR also stresses that the Revolutionary Penal Code and Revolutionary Procedural Law, applied by the military courts, are unconstitutional laws and lack the minimal standards of justice and rights of defense provided in the Palestinian Basic Law and relevant international standards.
PCHR emphasizes that the aforementioned sentences constitute a violation of the minimal standards of human rights and fair trial and also constitute arbitrary use of power. Therefore, PCHR:
