Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine condemns Israeli death penalty law, demands immediate repeal
COLOMBO – The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP) has condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli Knesset’s passage of a law imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of fatal attacks against Israelis, and demanded its immediate and unconditional repeal.
In a statement issued on Monday (April 1) the SLCSP has also called on the Sri Lankan government to issue a clear and principled position on the matter and engage diplomatically in support of international legal standards while urging the United Nations and its relevant bodies to move beyond condemnation and statements of concern to concrete action.
The statement in full:
The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP) condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli Knesset’s passage of a law imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of fatal attacks against Israelis, and demands its immediate and unconditional repeal.
The legislation (passed on March 30, by a 62-48 vote), applied exclusively to Palestinians in military courts where coerced confessions are admitted, legal counsel is curtailed, and conviction rates near 100%, is a discriminatory tool of state terror. It grants ethnic and national licence to kill, with no equivalent penalty for Israeli Jewish citizens or settlers who commit fatal attacks against Palestinians, routinely and with near-total impunity.
If enforced, this law would constitute a war crime and flagrant violation of international human rights law. It unfolds amid mass incarceration, where over 9,300 Palestinians languish in Israeli prisons, including hundreds in administrative detention without charge or trial, and over 350 children prosecuted in the same rigged courts now empowered for capital punishment.
Leading human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem have deemed Israel’s policies toward Palestinians apartheid under international law. This law entrenches that reality, codifying a two-tiered system of impunity for one people and execution for another.
The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine demands the Israeli government repeal the law immediately and unconditionally; the United Nations and its relevant bodies – UN Security Council, t Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court – move beyond condemnation and statements of concern to concrete action, including the activation of accountability mechanisms, referral to relevant international legal bodies, and meaningful measures to enforce Israel’s obligations under international law.
SLCSP also demands the Sri Lankan government issue a clear and principled position on the matter and engage diplomatically in support of international legal standards.
SLCSP stands in unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people – in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, and in the prisons of the occupier. Their right to life, to dignity, and to justice is not negotiable. Their lives have the same worth as any other. A law that says otherwise has no place in any system that claims the name of justice.
– Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine
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