Founded in 1993 with Marco Pannella and Mariateresa Di Lascia, we fight against capital, penal and penitentiary deadly systems — and against the preventive regimes that punish before they even judge.
Urgent actions · In progress
SEE ALL PETITIONS
Appeal to the United Nations
For a moratorium on capital executions and the end of "state secrets" on the death penalty
MARCO PANNELLA (2 MAY 1930 - 19 MAY 2016)
On 19 May 2016, Marco Pannella “passed away”... That is how we usually put it, although we at Hands Off Cain cannot really say so. So much of what we have done since then has been an attempt to turn his absence into a presence.
The three battles
4,777 EXECUTIONS IN 2025 · 113 ABOLITIONIST COUNTRIES · 9 ABOLITIONIST FOR ORDINARY CRIMES · 44 ABOLITIONIST DE FACTO · 33 RETENTIONIST COUNTRIES
We must move forward, beyond the death penalty, first liberating ourselves and clearing the field of the mental and structural armaments of judgment: investigations and courts, convictions and sentences, prosecutors and judges, jailers and executioners.
Discover48 SUICIDES IN PRISON IN 2026 · 65,933 INMATES IN 46,298 REAL PLACES · 189 MONITORED INSTITUTIONS
Prisons are not just places of deprivation of liberty. Because what is lacking are the fundamental senses and the most significant human contacts. The punishment is corporal, the damage is existential, the suffering is severe for all, not only for the inmates, but also for the guards.
Discover20,431 MEASURES IN FORCE · 47% WITHOUT CONVICTION · 340 NEW CASES IN 2026
In the name of the war against the mafia, contemporary trials and criminal punishments have been accompanied and often preferred to summary trials and medieval punishments such as seizures and property confiscations, prefectural prohibitions, and the dissolution of municipalities.
DiscoverPodcast
100 episodes
Go to the podcastWhen prevention is worse than punishment
25.05.2025
Death by punishment
25.04.2025
28.03.2025
Sign, spread the word, donate. In thirty years we have obtained moratoria and abolitions. The next victory also depends on you.
DATABASE - COUNTRY BY COUNTRY
