HOC Secretary General Sergio D'Elia and Elisabetta...

HOC Secretary General Sergio D'Elia and Elisabetta Zamparutti, editor of HOC's 2004 Report on the Death Penalty Worldwide, brought the capital punishment issue to the attention of the Human Rights Committee of the Italian Chamber of Representatives. Zamparutti described a number of positive developments in Asia and Africa to the Committee, chaired by Hon. Gennaro Malgieri.
In Kazakhstan, she said, President Nursultan Nazarbayev introduced a moratorium in 2003 and on May 14, 2004 announced the intention of abolishing the death penalty; in Tajikistan, on July 8, 2004, the upper house of the National Assembly endorsed a new law implementing a moratorium on the death penalty and replacing death sentences with prison terms; in Algeria, where a legal moratorium on executions has been in place since 1993, Justice Minister Al-Tayyeb Bilaiz on June 29, 2004, announced his intention of presenting a bill for the abolition of the death penalty and in South Korea, in July, the ruling Uri Party, in government since April, announced the presentation of a draft bill for abolition.
HOC's main campaign for a worldwide moratorium on executions through a resolution approved by the UN General Assembly - stalled through the refusal of the EU to present such a resolution to the GA - will proceed in collaboration with African countries, D'Elia said. He singled out the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mali, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria and Sierra Leone as countries where the evolution of the democratic process in recent years has signalled noteworthy steps towards abolition.
In response to this, Hon. Malgieri announced his intention of proposing to the same Human Rights Committee, to the Foreign Affairs Commission and the Chamber of Representatives as a whole, to carry out missions to Africa in support of the moratorium campaign.
During the hearing, Ramon Mantovani, MP for Rifondazione (communist party), and a member of the Committee, intervened with various considerations and questions directed at the HOC representatives.