Rights groups condemn Gaza executions

This posting has these items:
1) Guardian: Hamas kills three men in execution partially streamed on Facebook, Peter Beaumont, only person to highlight the Facebook live streaming;
2) NY Times: Hamas Publicly Executes 3 in Gaza After Killing of a Senior Leader, interesting because the NY Times chose to publicise the executions;
3) Electronic Intifada: Hamas vows to carry out more executions, extract from a 2010 article which gives some history on the controversial matter of capital punishment in Gaza;
4) PNN: Speedy Trials Achieve Neither Justice Nor Rule of Law, a surprisingly strong report from Palestinian News Network taken largely from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights;
5) PCHR: A note on the “al-Maydan” Court;

A Palestinian man is led to the place where he will be executed on Hamas orders, August 2014. Screenshot

Hamas kills three men in execution partially streamed on Facebook

Three men executed by hanging and firing squad were convicted of involvement in killing senior military figure Mazen Faqha

By Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem, The Guardian
May 25, 2017

Hamas has killed three men in Gaza accused of assassinating one of its senior members, in executions that appear to have been partially streamed live on Facebook.

The broadcast on the page of Gaza Now, a local news outlet, raises further questions over Facebook’s ability to moderate violent content at a time when its moderation procedures are under scrutiny following leaks of files on how the company deals with controversial and offensive material.

The shaky handheld footage, which appeared to have been filmed on a balcony, was described in Arabic as showing the executions. The Guardian could not verify its authenticity.

Hamas’ interior ministry said two men were hanged on Thursday and one was killed by firing squad for their part in the killing of Mazen Faqha, a senior figure in the military wing of the Islamist group.

In the footage, only distant people, moving vehicles and what appears to be a gallows covered in black cloth are visible. The video appeared to show the same screened gallows structure seen in still photographs taken during its construction.

A recording of the live broadcast, which lasted about 30 minutes, was later taken down.

Since taking over the Gaza Strip in an armed coup in 2007, Hamas has executed 28 people who were sentenced to death by its courts, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Faqha, 38, was killed in a garage in his apartment building in March after dropping off his family. Hamas said the attacker used a weapon with a silencer, allowing him to escape undetected.

Hamas accused Israel of killing Faqha through collaborators and launched a manhunt.

Ashraf Abu Leila, Hisham al-Aloul and Abdallah al-Nashar were quickly tried, sentenced on 16 May and executed just over a week later, raising questions about the judicial process.

The killings were condemned by the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights, which said the special field military court that issued the sentences “was constituted solely for this trial, the first such instance since the Hamas takeover of Gaza”.

Human Rights Watch questioned the speed of the trial process and its reliability, and the use of the death penalty by Hamas.

Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of HRW’s Middle East division, said: “Rushing to put men to death based on an unreviewable decision of a special military court, days after announcing their arrests and airing videoed confessions, smacks of militia rule, not the rule of law.

“Reliance on confessions in a system where coercion, torture and deprivation of detainee’s rights are prevalent, and [there are] other apparent due process violations, further taint[s] the court’s verdicts. Death as government-sanctioned punishment is inherently cruel and always wrong, no matter the circumstance.”

Speaking before the executions, Amnesty International said the court “utterly disregarded international fair trial standards”.

This crowd of boys and men at public executions in Gaza, August 2014, seems to horrify most spectators rather than thrill them. Photo by Reuters

Hamas Publicly Executes 3 in Gaza After Killing of a Senior Leader

By Majd Al Waheidi and Ian Fisher, NY Times
May 25, 2017

GAZA CITY — Three men were executed in Gaza on Thursday, days after being found guilty of assassinating a top member of the militant group Hamas — a crime the group accuses Israel of ordering.

Israel usually does not comment on such matters but has denied any part in the March killing.

Two of the sentenced men were executed by hanging, a third by firing squad. The executions were carried out as a near-communal event, with nearly 3,000 people, from political and tribal factions, invited. Two hooded Hamas executioners manned the scaffolding.

Gallows prepared for the execution in May 2016 of Hani Abu Aliyan, a 28-year-old convicted of killing two people in Oct. 2013. Photo from Gaza Interior Ministry/AP

Before he was executed, one of the condemned men, Hisham al-Aloul, 42, said in a shaking voice:

“I want to apologize to my people. I ask my family to forgive me. I tell the Israeli intelligence you are scum. Sooner or later the resistance will get you. The Palestinian security in Gaza is smarter than you. The American and Israeli intelligence are the worst of humanity.”

The assassination of Mazen Fuqaha, a senior member of Hamas’s military wing, set off a brutal search for people accused of collaborating with Israel in the Gaza Strip. Some 45 people have been arrested since the killing.

Amid a general crackdown, Hamas executed three people in March for collaboration, though their alleged crimes were not related to Mr. Fuqaha’s death. Hamas has recently changed leadership both at the head of the group and in the Gaza Strip, which it governs.

Mr. Fuqaha was found in his car, shot four times in the head at close range, after driving his family home from the beach, in what officials said bore the markings of a professional hit. A silencer was reportedly used.

The man who was convicted by Hamas in the assassination, Ashraf Abu Leila, 38, was hanged, as was Mr. Aloul, who was convicted as an accomplice. The third man, Abdullah al-Nashar, 38, a former officer in the presidential guard of the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, was killed by firing squad.

Human rights groups condemned the executions. the rights group B’Tselem, which is often criticized by the Israeli government, said in a statement on Thursday,

“A regime that takes lives as a punitive or deterrent measure is committing an immoral act that constitutes an intolerable violation of human rights.”

Mr. Fuqaha, who was 38 and originally from the West Bank, was close to the new leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, a hard-liner who has been especially concerned with betrayal within Hamas and cooperation with Israel. The two men reportedly shared a jail cell for a year in Israeli prison. Both were released in 2011.

Israel generally does not confirm or deny involvement in killings and attacks. In April, Avigdor Lieberman, the defence minister, took the unusual step of saying that Hamas is “known for internal assassinations” and that Israel was not looking for “adventures” in Gaza. Still, Hamas accuses Israel of responsibility.

Majd Al Waheidi reported from Gaza City, and Ian Fisher from Jerusalem.

Hamas vows to carry out more executions

By Mel Frykberg,The Electronic Intifada
April 21, 2010

EXTRACT

The Hamas authorities in Gaza have vowed to carry out more executions of those on death row despite intense international criticism and condemnation from both Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups….

Despite the intense pressure de facto interior minister Fathi Hammad said on Monday that his government “would not hesitate” to implement more death penalties against other collaborators.

“The Hamas government will continue enforcing capital punishment in the coastal enclave against those who have caused harm to national interests and who were the cause of the death of many Palestinians,” added Hammad.

Sixteen men are currently on death row in Gaza having been sentenced to death in 2009 and the first few months of this year. Eight of them are accused of treason.

Civil courts in Gaza apply the death penalty under the 1936 Penal Law No. 74, dating from the British mandate.

In the occupied West Bank, the PA’s civil courts impose capital punishment under the 1960 Jordanian Penal Law No. 16, which dates from Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank.

Military court death sentences are applied under the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979. However, the code remains vague in regard to some of the situations in which it can be applied.

Penal code article 165 applies to capital punishment for any crime that “incites people” and “harms the reputation or prestige of the Palestinian revolution.”

Furthermore, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) has not ratified the code and therefore it remains unconstitutional even under Palestinian law.

The PLC remains frozen and politically divided between Hamas and Fatah following the civil war which broke out between the two main Palestinian political factions in Gaza in June 2007 when Hamas ousted Fatah from the coastal territory.

Human rights groups remained unimpressed by Hammad’s statements. “In addition to objection in principle to the death penalty, Thursday’s executions were based on trials that did not meet even minimal standards of due process,” says Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Bill van Esveld from Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has monitored the death penalties being carried out in both the West Bank and Gaza, concurs.

“We are concerned about the lack of transparency, due process and impartiality. We see Fatah members being sentenced to death in Hamas courts,” van Esveld told IPS.

“However, we haven’t seen Hamas members who we have documented being involved in similar crimes being sentenced to death in Gaza. Part of an emerging pattern involved the lawyer of one of the accused telling us his client was forced to confess,” van Esveld said.

“This was backed up by the court which used this confession as part of its evidence against the individual despite the circumstances under which it was obtained.

“What is also problematic is the number of condemned civilians who should not have been tried in a military court in the first place,” said van Esveld.

“Any death penalty has to be ratified by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,” says Shawan Jabarin from Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq

“Therefore all those Gaza sentences were carried out illegally,” Jabarin told IPS.

However, in an interview with IPS in his Gaza office Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmed Yousef countered that Abbas’ term officially ended in January 2009 when new presidential and legislative elections were meant to be held.

“Furthermore, the current Palestinian Authority (PA) government was installed in 2007 as an emergency government which under Palestinian law is legal for only a month. It was not elected into power,” Yousef told IPS.

Yousef also rejected the accusations that the men had been coerced into confessions.

“I reject those accusations completely. If there were any abuses perpetrated against the accused, I am not aware of these,” Yousef told IPS. “There are those with vested political interests who are making these accusations. Those men were given a fair trial.”

Hamas has accused its arch-foe and Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan, who is widely believed to be a stooge of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and the Israelis and a key figure behind an attempted Gaza coup, which Hamas preempted in June 2007, of being behind the false rumours.

The head of the Military Justice Commission, Nasser Suleiman, speaks to the press in Gaza City on May 21, 2017 after an Al Maydan court, which has absolute powers, passed the death sentence on three men. Photo by AFP

Speedy Trials Achieve Neither Justice Nor Rule of Law

By PNN
May 21, 2017

An Al-Maydan* Military Court in Gaza issued today, 21 May 2017, death sentences against three Palestinians charged with collaboration with foreign entities, murder and engagement in the murder of Mazen Foqaha’, one of Hamas leaders. The death sentences were issued within one week after the trial had started, during which four sessions only were held, constituting a precedent since the Hamas take-over of the Gaza Strip in 2007. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is concerned over not granting the accused persons the right to receive a proper defence or fair trial, and is shocked over the unjustified urgency in issuing the sentences.

According to information collected by PCHR, an “al-Maydan” Military Court in Gaza sentenced to death by hanging each of A. M. L. (38), from al-Nusairat refugee camp, and H. M. E. (44), from Gaza City. Moreover, the Court sentenced E. A. N. (38) to death by firing squad. The three persons were convicted of collaboration with the Israeli authorities, murder and engagement in murder.

It should be noted the Gaza Strip courts excessively applied death sentences, as the number of death sentences issued in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year reached 23 sentences, 15 of which are recent and the eight others were issued to upheld previous sentences. Thus, the total number of death sentences issued in the Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled areas has risen to 189 sentences relevant to 189 cases since 1994, 20 of which have been issued in the West Bank and 169 in the Gaza Strip. Among those issued in the Gaza Strip, 111 sentences have been issued since 2007.

PCHR believes that resorting to “al-Maydan” Military Court is a violation of the right to a fair trial and the right to litigate before the natural judicial body. PCHR further stresses that the 1979 Revolutionary Penal Code and its provisions are not constitutional and violate the PA’s obligations at the international level, and this has always been PCHR’s attitude since 1995.

It should be noted that an “al-Maydan”* Court is one of the judicial mechanisms stipulated by article 11 of the Revolutionary Procedural Law. It is a court with absolute powers, issuing non-appealable sentences. This constitutes a flagrant violation of the Palestinian Basic Law, mainly article 30 of it, and a clear violation of the PA’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), specifically article 14 of it.

Based on PCHR’s follow-up of the hearings, PCHR highlights that the accused persons were not actually granted the right to receive a proper defence, as the jury claimed that the accused persons refused to be represented by a lawyer, therefore, the court assigned a lawyer for them working in the military prosecution. All that lawyer has done was displaying the evidences in one hearing without requesting a time limit to prepare his defence. This raises real concerns that the trial was pseudo.

PCHR underscores that a fair trial, especially when issuing death sentences, is one of the international binding rules, the violation of which is a violation of the international minimum human rights standards, especially article 6 of the ICCPR to which Palestine acceded in 2014.

PCHR rejects the insistence on applying death penalty as a deterrent penalty. Furthermore, PCHR believes that achieving justice is completely different from revenge and warns against the impact of revenge concept prevailing in the public opinion over the judiciary.

Since the establishment of the PA, 38 death sentences were applied; 36 of which were in the Gaza Strip and two in the West Bank. Among the sentences applied in the Gaza Strip, 25 were applied since 2007 without the ratification of the Palestinian President in violation of the law, and 6 of which were implemented following the formation of the National Unity Government in June 2014. PCHR denounced those death sentences without the ratification of the Palestinian President and highlighted that they constitute a flagrant violation of the Palestinian Basic Law since they required the ratification of the Palestinian President for implementation.

PCHR confirms that any death sentence should not be applied without the Palestinian President’s ratification according to article 109 of the 2003 Palestinian Basic Law, otherwise it is considered extra-judicial execution.

PCHR underscores rejection of the speedy trial policy whatever the justifications and motives were. PCHR also demands the military judiciary to respect the Basic Law and grant the accused persons the right to receive proper defence without discrimination and regardless of the nature of the crime.

PCHR calls upon the Attorney General and/or Administrative Committee in the Gaza Strip to not refer civilians to appear before military courts because it is a violation of the law and denial of justice.

NOTE

* From PCHR: An “al-Maydan” Court is one of the judicial mechanisms stipulated by article 11 of the Revolutionary Procedural Law. It is a court with absolute powers, issuing non-appealable sentences. This constitutes a flagrant violation of the Palestinian Basic Law, mainly article 30 of it, and a clear violation of the PA’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), specifically article 14 of it.