1930 — 2016 · THE FOUNDER
Marco Pannella.
He founded Hands off Cain in 1993. Since his death, his fight — our fight — continues. Starting with prison, the place where he "lived" the most and from which, he warned, one should "never look away, not even for a moment."
A NON-VIOLENT LIFE
The man behind the battle.
Marco Pannella was born in Teramo in 1930. He studied Law at Urbino and, already as a student, took part in the first civil battles of the post-war period: divorce, abortion, conscientious objection.
In 1963 he co-founded the Radical Party, a training ground for non-violence and civil disobedience. He became the face of hunger strikes — he would carry out 82 of them, some lasting for weeks on end, always for a concrete idea: a law to be passed, a referendum to be held, a prisoner to be saved.
In 1993, together with a group of fellow fighters, he founded Nessuno tocchi Caino. The goal: the universal abolition of the death penalty. Fourteen years later, in 2007, the UN approved the first moratorium. Pannella died on 19 May 2016. His battle continues because he taught it to us.
IMAGES
A life in the square.
OUR STORY
Eight dates.
1930
Born on 2 May in Teramo.
1963
Co-founds the Radical Party: non-violence, civil rights, civil disobedience.
1993
Co-founds Hands off Cain, the league for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide.
2006
He promotes the campaign "Hands off Saddam" with an hunger and thirst strike.
2007
The UN General Assembly approves the first universal moratorium on executions.
2013
Satyagraha for a message to the Parliament by the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano on prison overcrowding.
2015
During the Hands off Cain Congress, held in the Opera prison in Milan, he launches the campaign "Spes contra spem" against the life imprisonment without parole.
2016
Dies on 19 May in Rome.
HIS WORDS
He thought them. He lived them.
«The death penalty is not justice. It is vengeance organised by the State. It is the proof that the State surrenders to hatred.»
«Non-violence is choosing to be victims rather than executioners.»
«Italian prisons are like the universities of evil. You go in an apple thief and you come out a camorra boss.»
«Freedom is not a state, it is a conquest. Daily, laborious, never guaranteed.»