Ref:
43/2014

On
Monday, 17 November 2014, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) organized
a workshop for a group of young human rights activists on the death penalty in
the Palestinian Authority. The workshop was held in the Lighthouse Restaurant
in Gaza City in cooperation with Somow Youth Group and was attended by 23
persons, including 11 females. The participants discussed opinions and
perspectives related to death penalty and the need to abolish it. Mohammed Abu
Hashem, the legal and human rights researcher at PCHR, facilitated the
workshop.

The
workshop addressed a number of topics, the most prominent of which were: the death
penalty in domestic and international laws; guarantees of the application of
the death penalty under domestic and international standards; controversy over
the abolishment of death penalty; and the legal and objective justifications for
PCHR’s rejection for the death penalty in Palestine. Moreover, the workshop
addressed the application of extra-judicial executions for suspicions of
collaboration with Israeli forces and how they pose threats to the safety and
serenity of the Palestinian society and the rule of law.

This
workshop is part of PCHR’s effort to abolish death penalty, as PCHR targets
youth groups to encourage the youth contribution to the promotion of human
rights and creation of a new generation of human rights defenders.

It
should be noted that this workshop is part of a project implemented by PCHR in
cooperation with the Representative Office of the Federal Republic of Germany
to the Palestinian Authority.