Turkish Lawmaker Slams Israeli Death Penalty Law Targeting Palestinians

(MENAFN) Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus on Tuesday denounced Israel’s newly approved law permitting the death penalty for Palestinians, describing it as discriminatory and a threat to core legal principles.

In a statement posted on the Turkish social media platform NSosyal, Kurtulmus said the legislation creates a separate legal system for Israeli citizens, fostering inequality based on identity.

He called it “an attempt to entrench the de facto occupation under the guise of criminal law,” and added that it marks “a dangerous threshold that turns state power into an authority to impose death based on identity.”

“A discriminatory penal regime based on ethnic identity is being reinforced. Prescribing the death penalty for one group and a different sanction for another for the same act is not lawful; it is a clear persecution,” he said.

Kurtulmus also accused the Israeli government of leveraging the judicial system to extend policies from Gaza to the West Bank. He warned that any execution of Palestinians under occupation would breach fundamental principles, including the right to a fair trial.

“The Netanyahu government has once again shown that this is about entrenching a system of domination that does not recognize the Palestinian people as equal human beings before the law,” he added.

The law, approved by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, with support from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, allows capital punishment for Palestinians accused of acts labeled as “terror” that result in deaths.

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