"Notwithstanding the fact that it had backing from...

"Notwithstanding the fact that it had backing from both the Italian and European Parliaments, together with requests from civil society, including firstly Hands Off Cain, the Italian Government registered its umpteenth failure".
These were the comments made by Sen. Nuccio Iovene, head of the Democrats of the Left (DS) at the Italian Senate's human rights commission, following the commission speech made by Undersecretary Boniver.
Upon a request put forward by the DS, the commission had summoned the government to address its failure in presenting a resolution for a moratorium on capital executions at the ongoing General Assembly in New York.
"At the Commission," Iovene added, "Undersecretary Boniver justified the government's renouncement for such an action by hiding herself behind the unwillingness of our European partners to back the proposal. According to the statistics provided by Hands Off Cain, confirmed in recent months by our own government, the conditions were finally there for the approval of the resolution at the General Assembly... The truth is that the centre right government has in these past months behaved ambiguously and contradicted itself: one need only think of the abandonment of the constitutional reform, currently being discussed in the Senate, which would have definitively got rid of the death penalty from our Constitution, even under military law and in times of war.
Or the delay to the ratification of Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the death penalty.
It is quite shocking to see that even on such important and delicate matters the government isn't able to venture past the propaganda, remaining a subordinate prisoner of the logic of countries like the United States and China, both of whom are against the moratorium".