ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/STONE-THROWING Israel ramps up punishments for stone-throwers, Palestinians protest

Record ID: 146419

  • Title: ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/STONE-THROWING Israel ramps up punishments for stone-throwers, Palestinians protest
  • Date: 21st July 2015
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PALESTINIAN YOUTHS HURLING ROCKS AT ISRAELI SECURITY FORCES WHO FIRE STUN GRENADES AT THEM
  • Embargoed: 5th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1SJG0R2E2PU1R6U2WUI31A5XB
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY WAS 4:3
    Israel's parliament imposed tougher penalties of up to 20 years prison for people throwing stones at vehicles and roads, a move one Palestinian official branded racist and excessive.
    Lawmakers voted 69 to 17 to increase the punishments late on Monday, approving legislation proposed after a wave of Palestinian protests last year in East Jerusalem.
    "Tolerance toward terrorists ends today. A stone-thrower is a terrorist and only a fitting punishment can serve as a deterrent and just punishment," Israel's Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, of the far-right Jewish Home party, said in a written statement.
    Confrontations between Palestinian youths and Israeli police routinely degenerate into violent clashes, and stone-throwing has been a symbol of Palestinian resistance since the first Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, against Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
    Since 2011 three Israelis, including a baby and a girl, have been killed in the occupied West Bank after rocks were thrown at vehicles they were in.
    Human rights groups have criticised Israel for using excessive force including live fire in suppressing Palestinian demonstrations, causing dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.
    The new law allows for a sentence of up to 20 years in jail for throwing a rock at a vehicle with the intent of causing bodily harm and 10 years in prison if intent was not proven.
    Prosecutors in such cases have usually sought sentences of no more than three months in jail when the offence does not result in serious injury.
    Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoner Club, an organisation that advocates on behalf of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, said the new law was "racist".
    "The Israeli military courts take decisions and implement punishments that are unfair and don't meet with the nature of the offense. Now the stone-throwers are punished between 6 months to a year and a half, to be risen to 10 years and 20 years, that shows that Israel doesn't take into consideration the international standards that is agreed upon, which are the legal standards, and constitutes the legal base for provisions which requires that the punishment fits the offense and in this case the punishment doesn't fit the offense at all," said Qadura Fares.
    The law would cover territory including East Jerusalem, but not the occupied West Bank, most of which is under the jurisdiction of the Israeli military.
    Israel hands down about 1,000 indictments a year for rock-throwing, according to the Israeli Knesset.
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government faced growing calls to take action after the Palestinian protests in 2014 over the Gaza war and the burning alive of a Palestinian teenager in a suspected revenge attack for the killing of three Israeli teens by Palestinian militants.
    During the protests, stones were regularly thrown at the city's light railway.
    The new legislation was originally promoted by Shaked's predecessor, centrist Tzipi Livni.
    The Palestinians seek a state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014.
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