“SHAMS” center follows with a lot of concern, the issuance of the (3) death sentences by the Military Judicial Authority in Gaza, in 9/11/2021, where two civilians were accused of espionage and charged with death sentence, and the third was accused of drug dealing, these death sentences come after the issuance of (10) death sentences in October, where (8) of them were new sentences, and (2) were in support of past sentences, which constitutes and ongoing violation of civilian rights, being sued in military courts with no fair guarantees, with the ongoing systematic abuse of executing death sentences by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Although there is no excuse to issue death sentences, but issuance a death sentence to a civilian charged with drug dealing is worth discussing, however, it is true that drug dealing is unacceptable on all levels, the international laws stressed that death sentences in general are unacceptable, especially on crimes that are not considered most-dangerous, and that penalties in such crimes could be fines or imprisonment, this was approved by decree 2005/59 issued by the Human Right Committee in the United Nations, on Death sentence, the decree called on member countries to not take “ Most Dangerous Crime” into other contexts, but only to crimes that cause death of that might cause collateral damage. In addition to that, the Palestinian legislations did not state on punishing these crimes with death sentence, which makes these sentences an indicator on the lack of commitment to the legislative frameworks, whether nationally or internationally.
The center stresses on the fact that these sentences are dangerous, being issued by judicial courts against civilians, which is a big legal violation to international practices and standards, and to the Basic Amended Law, which stated that military courts are not authorized to work outside the military field. Based on that “SHAMS” center emphasizes that death sentences in military and civilian judiciary system in the Gaza strip should stop immediately, and that all human rights related to fair trialing should be guaranteed based on the related international standards and practices, as well as basic Palestinian national legislations.
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