"the Italian government has given up on the moratorium...

"the Italian government has given up on the moratorium resolution and faced with this cowardice, I renounce my Italian passport," HOC Board Member Oliviero Toscani stated in reaction to the Italian government's failure to present the resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions at the UN General Assembly.
The Italian government, currently also EU term-president, had till November 7 to present this resolution, this being the deadline for the presentation of all resolutions at the General Assembly currently in session.
"I am embarrassed to belong to the human race and to a country, Italy, that I believed had understood the importance of this resolution, but now I see that this is not the case," said Toscani, whose controversial "We, on death row" campaign featuring US death row inmates in a fashion catalogue had brought the death penalty issue to worldwide attention in 2000.
"If up to now [Italian Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi had disguised himself as a person sensitive to human rights, he has now shed the mask," Toscani stated.