[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 25



WORLD:

DEATH PENALTY: TOWARDS A UNIVERSAL MORATORIUM


With passage of the United Nations Moratorium on Executions likely in the
current General Assembly, we are on the verge of obtaining a major victory
for humanity which the Non-violent and Transnational Radical Party and
Hands Off Cain have been seeking for 14 years, writes Elisabetta
Zamparutti, curator of the annual report of Hands Off Cain, ''The Death
Penalty in the World", and a leader of the Radical Party.

After the execution of Saddam Hussein and through the moratorium campaign,
Hands Off Cain and the Radical Party have succeeded in making everyone
understand, even in the Arab world and beginning with the Cain of our
time, the urgency of preventing a widening cycle of violence and war, in
Iraq and elsewhere, which would have disastrous consequences.

It was non-violent actions that were responsible for convincing the public
of the urgency a measure like the UN moratorium and so accelerated the
historic process of abolitionism.

The startling drama and horror of the death penalty in the world today is
to be found largely in the 98 % of the world's 5000 years executions that
are carried in totalitarian and repressive countries. It is because of the
nameless and forgotten victims of the death penalty in these countries
that a universal moratorium is so very important.

(source: IPS News)