JERUSALEM/GAZA, January 19, 2012 (WAFA) – The European Union missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza (PCHR) condemned in two separate statements death sentences recently passed in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement issued from Jerusalem on Thursday, the EU missions condemned a death sentence a Gaza military court had passed on January 11 against a Palestinian accused of collaboration with Israel.

It said that the EU opposes use of capital punishment, adding that it “considers that abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights.”

The statement called on the “de facto authorities in Gaza,” meaning Hamas, to “refrain from carrying out any executions of prisoners and comply with the de facto moratorium on executions put in place by the Palestinian Authority, pending abolition of the death penalty in line with the global trend.”

PHCR also condemned another death sentence passed in absentia by a Gaza civil court on Monday against a 27-year-old resident of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, after if found him guilty of murdering his brother in 2005.

It said it was “gravely concerned over the continued application of the death penalty” in the Palestinian Territory and called for “an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty as a form of punishment.”

With the two death sentences issued so far this year, the total number of death sentences passed by the Palestinian Authority since 1994 has reached 123, of which 25 have been issued in the West Bank and 98 in the Gaza Strip, said PCHR.

Among those issued in the Gaza Strip, 37 sentences have been issued since 2007 when Hamas controlled the coastal enclave.

The Palestinian president has to ratify death sentences before they are executed, but since the 2007 division between the West Bank and Gaza, the Hamas authorities in the Strip carried out death sentences without President Mahmoud Abbas’ ratification.

M.S.