GENEVA: United Nations experts on Wednesday called on Israel to withdraw a bill proposing the mandatory death penalty for terrorist acts, warning it would violate the right to life and discriminate against Palestinians.
Israel’s parliament last November passed a first reading of a draft amendment to the country’s penal code, demanded by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
“Mandatory death sentences are contrary to the right to life,” a dozen independent UN rights experts warned in a statement.
“By removing judicial and prosecutorial discretion, they prevent a court from considering the individual circumstances, including mitigating factors, and from imposing a proportionate sentence that fits the crime,” they said.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country: the last person to be executed was the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann in 1962.
