Ref: 61/2023

Date: 30 May 2023

Time: 11:30 GMT 

The Higher Crime Committee in Gaza unanimously issued a death sentence by hanging against (S. Q.) after being convicted of killing (A. Q.) on grounds of a family dispute.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reiterates its condemnation of all murder crimes and its total support with the families of victims of these heinous crimes, stressing the importance of prosecuting the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. In the meantime, PCHR emphasizes that death penalty is not the only mean to achieve justice or deter crimes, bearing in mind Palestine’s accession to the 1989 Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

With the issuance of this sentence, the death sentences issued by the Court of First Instance since the beginning of this year have risen to 4: 3 issued by the civil courts and the fourth one issued by the military court, in addition to four other sentences issued in affirmation of former death sentences. Thus, the number of the death sentences issued in the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas since 1994 has risen to 284: 254 in the Gaza Strip, and 30 in the West Bank. Of those issued in the Gaza Strip, 195 have been issued since the 2007 Palestinian political division.

Since the establishment of the PA in 1994, 46 death sentences were executed: 44 in the Gaza Strip, and two in the West Bank. Of those executed in the Gaza Strip, 33 were conducted without the ratification of the Palestinian President in violation of Palestinian law. In this context, PCHR stresses the need to perpetuate the policy of refraining from ratifying death sentences in a prelude to abolishing this punishment from the Palestinian legislations.

PCHR stresses that the Second Optional Protocol to ICCPR is binding to the authorities in Palestine, including the Gaza Strip. Therefore, use of death penalty must stop in a prelude to abolish it from the legislations.

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 repeal any legal articles in the Palestinian Law that contradicts Palestine’s accession to the ICCPR Protocol aiming at abolishing the death penalty.