STRASBOURG, FIRST WORLD CONGRESS AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY
22 June, 2001: Hands off Cain calls for attention to all those executed whose plight is not known to the world.
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Hands Off Cain is an international League of citizens, parliamentarians and mayors for the abolition of the death penalty.
When, eight years ago, we founded Hands Off Cain in the hope of obtaining at least a moratorium on executions by the end of the millennium, many people came to us and said that we were crazy.
Actually, in these past years, we haven’t so much fought against the death penalty, as against pessimism and resignation.
Many people asked us why we worried; the abolition of the death penalty would arrive in the same way as slavery was abolished and torture prohibited.But how long will it take?
In 1993 there were ninety-nine abolitionist countries of various categories: fifty-eight totally abolitionist, seven-teen abolitionist for ordinary crimes, twenty-three de facto abolitionist and one abolitionist through a moratorium on executions. There were also ninety-seven which retained the death penalty.
Today there are one-hundred-twenty-four abolitionist countries of various categories and seventy-two states retain the death penalty, twenty-five less than in 1993.
This wasn’t the natural evolution of a historical process, but the result of a political campaign. We were not crazy, we were certainly visionary, but I think that only visionary people are able to reach their goals, ever “new frontiers” of human civilisation.
On our initiative, in 1994, for the first time, the Italian government presented, alone, a resolution for the moratorium on executions at the General Assembly in New York. The European Union did not agree with the Italian initiative, which was considered unrealistic. The resolution failed by just eight votes, but the ripple effect started immediately. In 1997 and 1998, the Italian government, alone, presented the resolution for a moratorium at the UN Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva. The European Union, once again, did not agree with the Italian initiative, but the resolution won by an absolute majority of votes.
As you know, in November 1999, the European Union first presented a resolution for the moratorium at the General Assembly, and then refused to put it to the vote. “The European Union cannot accept any compromise on this issue,” they said.
I would like to underline present that Governments in international fora have never been seen to present a text and decide not to negotiate it without changing so much as a comma.
The winning of a new human right – such as the abolition of the death penalty -cannot be imposed by a decree, but it is the expression of a minimum common denominator that can be found amongst the abolitionists and the retentionists. The moratorium is in effect a compromise between the two. The abolitionists take a step closer to the retentionists, and vice-versa. This compromise must be found through dialogue. We must reach a point of contact between different cultures and societies.
But we must also keep into account the real situation of the death penalty worldwide.
Three days ago in Rome, we presented our fourth annual report on the death penalty. This year we have decided to focus on the hidden side of capital punishment, since there are two sides to the death penalty around the world: that in the spotlight, in the United States, and that kept in the dark, in China.
Often in the eyes of the media and for us European abolitionists only the first exists. There isn’t much talk about the second side, even though we know that in China there were one-thousand-one-hundred executions this year, compared with the one-thousand executions last year.
But it isn’t only China, there are other countries, ones with dictatorships or fundamentalist countries where those sentenced to death go directly from prison to a firing squad, without trial.
Which is what happened in Palestine where, at the beginning of the year, two Palestinians accused of spying for Israel were executed in Neblus and Gaza. The Palestinian authorities had tried the men, sentenced them to death and executed them in front of a cheering crowd within the space of forty-eight hours.
The same happened in Iraq, where last year Saddam Hussein ordered the beheading of tens of men and women suspected of being linked to prostitution. At least one-hundred people were executed with the heads of some of them placed in front of the doors of their own residences.
In conclusion, I would not like the voice against the death penalty to be heard only if it is anti-American, just because it isn’t politically correct to touch upon certain third-world, anti-imperialist or anti-Israeli myths.
I invite you to visit our website handsoffcain.org for the latest updates regarding the obscure side of the death penalty and the initiatives for a UN moratorium on executions. We aim at representing the resolution on the moratorium before the next UN General Assembly. This is the only way to give a voice, dignity and hope to the thousands in China, Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba who are executed in silence and amongst general indifference. Thank you.
— SOURCES
- Hands off Cain: 22/06/2001
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