A week of activities to commemorate the abolition of...

A week of activities to commemorate the abolition of the death penalty in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany kicked off in Florence. The death penalty was abolished by the Grand Duke Leopold I on November 30, 1786, and the commemorative event was organised on the initiative of the president of the Tuscan Regional Council Riccardo Nencini.
Former European Commission President Jacques Santer, present at the inauguration, said that the condemnation of the death penalty cannot be renounced even in the current world situation characterised by terrorism and the war in Afghanistan.
"The death penalty has been abolished in Europe," Santer said. "This principle is enshrined in the Nice charter on basic human rights and it's a founding element of the European Union and our civilisation.
"It's a question of principle that must be taken into account."
"We must insist on the total condemnation of anyone who still supports a barbaric practice such as the death penalty," Nencini said.
"I'm thinking of China, that has executed over a thousand of its 1,900 death row inmates, of Iraq and Iran that carried out 400 and 150 executions respectively, not to mention Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
"We need to fight this practice with events to raise public awareness and all the democratic instruments that can be activated.
"When we say that we are against the death penalty, we cannot make exceptions," the Tuscan Region president Claudio Martini said.
"The fight against the death penalty has never been subject to ifs and buts."