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Curzon
Author

Curzon

Date

June 13th, 2005

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Capital Punishment in the Occupied Territories

Palestinian Authority executes convicted murderers.

The Palestinian Authority carried out its first executions since 2002 yesterday, killing four convicted murderers as part of a new campaign to rein in lawlessness and chaos, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said… Three of the men were hanged and one was shot by a firing squad.

There’s no shortage of Europeans ready to criticize Iran, China, Japan, and the US when it comes to executions. And considering that the US death penalty comes complete with a multi-million dollar, double digit year appeals process, I look forward to European condemnations of the Palestinian authority for this execution, carried out just weeks after the men were convicted in late May.

(My guess—without reference to the aforelinked Grabic and without intention to pick on him—is that most Europeans, if they bother to notice this incident at all, will fault Israel/the Jews/the Zionists.)

Comments to this entry

Joe
June 13, 2005
12:20 pm
On a related note, and recalling an earlier post, Amnesty International has criticized the PA's stance on the death penalty. Not nearly as much as "it has criticized Israel,":http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-pse/index but at least it's something. And in their most recent report, they criticize the PA for its death penalty policy and for "not bringing terrorists to justice":http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE210032005?open&of=ENG-PSE which is kind of refreshing.
Martey
June 13, 2005
6:40 pm
The BBC had an article on the issue that had an interesting quote:
"These individuals killed innocent human beings and by executing them we applied our law," Palestinian Attorney General Hussain Abu Aasi told the AFP news agency.

"Even the most democratic state in the world, America, invokes this kind of punishment," he said.
Grendel
June 24, 2005
7:32 am
My guess"”?without reference to the aforelinked Grabic and without intention to pick on him"”?is that most Europeans, if they bother to notice this incident at all, will fault Israel/the Jews/the Zionists.

Grabic is my last name. ;-)
As for the executions, I clearly stated "my position":http://grabic.blogspot.com/2005/06/death-penalty-in-japan.html to the death penalty. It doesn't matter which nation/state/group performs it.

By the way, I'm still curious whether you can back your statement about the increasing crime rate in Europe because of the abolition of the death penalty with numbers. Chances are, you can't, I but I thought I ask anyway...
heirabbit
June 24, 2005
11:05 am
Doesn't anyone ever feel like these political issues are really just red herrings? The level of injustice related to the death penalty would seemingly be related to the health of the justice system itself - how much corruption plays a role, the existence of a clear legal code, and the general respect for law and human life in society. what i'm getting to is: what are americans doing debating a couple palestinian executions, when the legal fabric of america itself is corrupt (ruled by lawyers), over-complex (law contradicts itself, laws have no general priority or continuity), and lacking in social support. people are still supporting the afganiraq war, promoting and exporting violence. this type of stance on "moral issues" seems something like how many tyrants dote on their pets....