Hands Off Cain greeted the new Iraqi government that...

Hands Off Cain greeted the new Iraqi government that took power on June 28, two days before the scheduled handover from coalition authorities led by the US.
"Hands Off Cain looks favourably on the installation of Iyyad Allawi's government and hopes that, after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, the setting-up of this government is another step on the road towards democracy, the rule of law, and the respect of human rights," HOC Secretary General Sergio D'Elia said in a statement.
However, there must be concrete signals of this and acts that prove the new government is clearly breaking with the past, the international abolitionist NGO executive said.
"Re-instating the death penalty and worse still condemning Saddam Hussein to death and executing him would clearly not be the best way to prove to the world that Iraq has made a fresh start."
Saddam Hussein's Iraq, along with China and Iran, has in recent years regularly featured among the top three executioners worldwide. The abolition of the death penalty, or at least a moratorium on executions, would signal a clean break from the previous regime.
"Hands off Saddam is our appeal," D'Elia said. "Assuring the inviolability of a person that has committed horrendous crimes - though certainly not his impunity - is the most effective way to present a new Iraq to the world."
"I don't know what legal role the EU and Italy may undertake and what our duties will be in Iraq after the handover of power to Iraqi authorities," D'Elia said. "Certainly, if these duties pertain to co-operation in judicial and police matters, our co-operation must have a limit: that of non-collaboration in the application of the death penalty.
"Should the prevailing principle of such co-operation be - rather than our Hands Off Saddam- that of non-interference in internal affairs, this would be just an alibi to cover-up an internal settling of scores and the inauguration of a ruthless justice far removed from the noble intentions of the intervention in Iraq."
Hands Off Cain will shortly kick-off a campaign for the establishment of a moratorium on executions in Iraq. The campaign will be addressed mainly to the new Iraqi government, and also to the 25 EU member states and other abolitionist states co-operating with the new Iraqi government, and will be run through parliamentary motions and public appeals for a moratorium with a view to the abolition of the death penalty.