PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: DEATH SENTENCES SURGE IN WEST BANK, GAZA

Palestinian officials should announce an immediate moratorium on the death penalty and eliminate its use in Palestinian law, Human Rights Watch said in letters to Palestinian officials.
In 2008, Palestinian civil and military courts have sentenced 11 people to death, including a defendant who was a child at the time of the alleged offense.
"It's deeply disturbing that Palestinian courts have resumed issuing death sentences at a time when the rest of world is moving toward abolishing capital punishment," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division.
"President Abbas should make clear that he will commute all of these sentences when they arrive on his desk." Seven of the 11 death sentences this year were issued by military courts, in breach of a commitment made by Abbas in June 2005 to refer all death penalty cases to civilian courts.
Palestinian military and state security courts do not meet international fair trial standards. In two of the cases, before military courts in Jenin and Hebron, the trials lasted just one day.