Gaza – Human rights group Amnesty International urged Hamas not to follow through on planned executions following the Islamic religious festival of Eid al-Fitr.
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The article, posted on Thursday, followed statements made last week by Hamas’ Attorney General Ismail Jaber saying that Hamas planned to execute certain criminals as a public lesson.
“This and other recent announcements by Hamas authorities that they will carry out further executions are deeply disturbing,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International.
“We acknowledge the right and responsibility of governments to bring to justice those suspected of criminal offenses, but the death penalty is cruel and inhuman, and there is no evidence that it deters crime more effectively than other punishments,” Luther added.
According to Amnesty International, several of the ‘criminals’ slated for execution confessed to their crimes under extreme duress.
This suggests a possible breakdown in Hamas’ judicial system.
Luther said, “Hamas should pursue justice by prosecuting people accused of internationally recognizable crimes in fair trials without recourse to the death penalty and ensuring all allegations of torture are investigated.”
However, whether or not the crimes were indeed committed by those accused, Luther slammed the concept of public executions calling them “degrading” and adding that they “compound the cruelty of the death penalty.”
The planned executions are not the first time Hamas has carried out death sentences publicly. In June, two unidentified men were hanged publicly after being accused of serving as spies for Israel.
Sixteen Palestinians have been executed in Gaza for spying since Hamas seized the territory in 2007.
Luther added that Amnesty International were asking Hamas to place a “moratorium on the use of the death penalty and commuting all death sentences.”
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
The Human Rights Group forget that these are not Humans, if they do this to their brothers and laugh they are not even animals, animals don’t do this to their own
Look at the picture. And they say, “This suggests a possible breakdown in Hamas’ judicial system.”. Ya think?
If they use death penalty as they do in Iran for the capital offense of homosexuality, I as a heimishs yid agree.
Say please dont be so harsh on them its a Religoun they are following.
There is no breakdown in the Hamas judicial system because there IS no Hamas judicial system. Come on – everyone with half a brain knows what Hamas is. Ask the families of the PA soldiers who were brutally slaughtered at the hands of Hamas animals after Israel pulled out of Gaza. Ask the families of men bayoneted, burned, flayed alive and thrown off buildings.
Herein is exactly where the problem lies; amnesty international believes, as do most of the world, that we are dealing with human beings with civilized sensibilities.
What they don’t understand is that if man descended from the ape, then the ape descended from the Palestinian. They are light-years away from anything remotely close to human morality.
It’s the fault of the Israeli occupation. Blame israel
Now that Amnesty has attacked Hamas for executing people, since Amnesty is against the death penalty, it is time to move on to real issues such as Israel arresting those who throw rocks which injure civilians. How nice it is to be evenhanded.