CONGO: HANDS OFF CAIN MISSION – JUSTICE MINISTER FOR ABOLITION

the Hands Off Cain delegation, comprising parliamentarian Elisabetta Zamparutti and senator Marco Perduca, together with the Italian ambassador to Brazaville, Francesco Paolo Venier, today met Justice Minister Aimée Emmanuel Yoka to ask for an internal adjustment to the position expressed at the international level by Congo, which co-sponsorised the new pro moratorium Resolution in discussion at the United Nations' General Assembly. Minister Yoka, who has declared himself a convinced abolitionist, acknowledged the necessity of an act of internal coherence and made a commitment to a government initiative to present a proposed abolitionist law at the March session of parliament.
Zamparutti and Perduca said “The decision of the government in Brazaville is important because it would remove the question of the death penalty, as important as the adjustment of internal legislation to the ratification by Congo of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, from the complex process of revision of the penal code and of criminal procedure.”
For the Radical delegation, the commitment made by the Minister also takes special importance in view of Italy's support for the nomination of Congo-Brazaville at the UN Council of Human Rights which is scheduled for March.
The mission in Congo concludes the third step of the Hands Off Cain “Africa Project” for the realisation of the UN resolution for the moratorium on executions and the abolition of the death penalty in Africa. The two year project, financed in part by the European Union, foresees the creation of missions in 8 African countries for the first year and the holding of regional conferences in the second year.
After the missions carried out in Zambia, Mali and Congo-Brazaville, in the next few weeks Hands Off Cain will go to Congo-Kinshasa, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone.