Hands Off Cain

HANDS OFF CAIN Who We Are Founded in Brussels in 1993 by the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty, Hands Off Cain (HOC) is a league of citizens and parliamentarians for the Universal Moratorium on Executions; the name “Hands Off Cain” is inspired by the book of Genesis, which includes not only the phrase “an eye for an eye” but also “And the Lord set a sign upon Cain, lest any finding him should smite him”. Its objective was to obtain a Moratorium on executions in the world, in view of the definitive abolition of the death penalty. Regarding this objective, which is of huge human and civil importance, Hands Off Cain has managed to mobilise parliaments, governments and public opinion around the world. On December 18, 2007, the approval of a resolution for a moratorium on executions by the UN General Assembly was, without a doubt, a milestone in the struggle to abolish the death penalty worldwide, and represented for Hands Off Cain a historical achievement. However, it wasn’t just the success of the Moratorium at the United Nations, which capped off the conclusion of more than fifteen years of commitment on the part of Hands Off Cain and the Nonviolent Radical Party in working towards this objective at the international level. From 1993 to today, about 60 countries have abandoned the practice of the death penalty, 20 of which have done so in the last five years, that is, after the re-launching of the initiative at the United Nations. Pro-Moratorium Campaign Perspectives after the Success at the U.N. The UN vote drew a line for countries, both in the dream of nonviolence and in the administration of justice. Now is the moment to double the effort and accelerate the process and Hands Off Cain has established two priority fronts, two objectives for its initiatives in meeting the request of the United Nations for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. The first is to abolish “State Secrets” concerning the death penalty, because many countries, mostly authoritarian, do not provide information on its application and the lack of information available concerning public opinion is a direct cause of higher numbers of executions. Towards this end, the Secretary General of the United Nations should institute the position of a special envoy, whose job it is, not only to monitor the situation and to push for increased transparency within the systems of capital punishment, but also to continue to persuade those who still maintain the death penalty to arrive, through moratorium, at the definitive abolition of the death penalty worldwide. The second is to spread the word of the Resolution throughout the world and organize political, legislative and public events in countries that still practice the death penalty. After the approval, on December 21, 2010, by the United Nations’ General Assembly of a new Resolution for the universal moratorium on capital punishment, Hands Off Cain is lobbying to forward the concrete application of the U.N. position in countries that still practice the death penalty, to arrive, through moratorium, at the definitive abolition of the death penalty worldwide. Starting with Africa, which is the continent where there is the largest number of de facto abolitionist countries and where, in recent years, there have been significant steps towards the abolition of the death penalty. Rwanda, Burundi, Gabon, Togo and Benin completely eliminated the death penalty, and especially in the first two of these countries, abolition took on an extraordinary symbolic value, as well as legal and political value, being lands where, perhaps, the endless cycle of vengeance and the eternal drama of Cain and Abel was played out most truly and tragically. HANDS OFF CAIN The Death Penalty Worldwide (as of 27 November 2012) The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for more than ten years, was again confirmed in 2011 and the first eleven months of 2012. There are currently 154 Countries and territories that, to different extents, have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 100 are totally abolitionist; 7 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 5 have a moratorium on executions in place and 42 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. Countries that have not carried out any executions for at least 10 years or Countries which have binding obligations not to use the death penalty). On the other hand, there are 44 Countries retaining the death penalty worldwide. However, retentionist Countries have gradually declined over the last few years: in 2009 there were 45, 48 in 2008, 49 in 2007, 51 in 2006 and 54 in 2005. In 2011, executions were carried out in 19 Countries, compared to 22 in 2010, 19 in 2009 and 26 in 2008. In 2011, there were at least 5,000 executions, compared to at least 5,946 in 2010, at least 5,741 in 2009 and at least 5,735 in 2008. The decline of executions compared to previous years is justified by the significant drop in executions in China, estimated to be down from about 5,000 in 2010 to about 4,000 in 2011. In 2011 and in the first eleven months of 2012, there were no executions in 4 Countries where executions were carried out in 2010: Bahrain, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Malaysia. On the other hand, 7 Countries resumed executions: Afghanistan (2) and United Arab Emirates (1) in 2011; Botswana (1), Japan (3), Gambia (9), Pakistan (1) and India (1) in 2012. In the United States of America, no “abolitionist” State reintroduced the death penalty, but Idaho, with 1 execution in 2011 and 1 in 2012, resumed executions after a 17 years de facto moratorium dating back to 1994. Once again, Asia tops the standings as the region where the vast majority of executions are carried out. Taking the estimated number of executions in China to be about 4,000 (about a thousand less than in 2010), the total for 2011 corresponds to a minimum of 4,931 executions (98.6%), down from 2010 when there were at least 5,855 executions. In the Americas, the United States of America was the only Country to carry out executions (43) in 2011. In Africa, in 2011, the death penalty was carried out in 4 Countries (in 2010 there were 6) – Somalia (at least 11), Sudan (at least 7), South Sudan (5), Egypt (at least 1) – where there were at least 24 executions. In 2010 there were at least 43 executions, in 2009 at least 19 as in 2008 and compared to 26 in 2007 and 87 in 2006 on the entire continent. In Europe, the only blemish on an otherwise completely death penalty-free zone continues to be Belarus, where two men were put to death for homicide in 2011 while another two men were executed in 2012. IRAQ One of the world’s top executioners The death penalty can be imposed in Iraq for around 48 crimes, including a number of non-fatal crimes such as – under certain circumstances – damage to public property. After the fall of Saddam Hussein on 9 April 2003, the death penalty was suspended by the Provisional Authority of the Coalition. It was reintroduced after the transfer of power to Iraqi authorities on 28 June 2004. On 8 August, a little more than a month after it came to power, the Iraqi interim government, led by Iyad Allawi, approved a law that reintroduced the death penalty for homicide, kidnapping, rape and drug-trafficking. On 30 May 2010, the Iraqi Council of Ministers extended the application of the death penalty for economic crimes to the stealing of electricity. Ratifying the death sentence is one of the prerogatives of Iraq’s head of State, as stipulated in article 73 of the constitution. The current president, Jalal Talabani, has always spoke out against the fact that his Country uses the death penalty, stressing it was time to turn the page on Iraq’s history of capital punishment. “I think that the page of executions needs to be turned, except concerning the crimes committed at the cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and crimes against Shiite pilgrims and holy sites,” Talabani said. The president, who was reappointed in November 2010 in a power-sharing pact that ended more than eight months of political paralysis, during his first term, declined to confirm some court execution orders but without preventing the hangings going ahead as the two vice presidents at the time, a Shiite and a Sunni, were able to authorize them in his place. But their mandate has not been renewed. On 13 June 2011, President Talabani appointed his first deputy minister Khudayr al-Khuzaie to sign death penalty verdicts and, on 19 August, he appointed his second deputy minister Tareq al-Hashemi to do the same. The Death Penalty under Nouri al-Maliki, an echo of Saddamite Baathist Terror The hangings are carried out regularly from a wooden gallows in a small, cramped cell of al- Kadhimiya Prison, in Saddam Hussein’s old intelligence headquarters at Kadhimiya, a Shia district of Baghdad. The condemned prisoners in Kadhimiya are said to include rapists and murderers as well as insurgents awaiting the same summary justice they mete out to their own captives. On 30 December 2006, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged for crimes against humanity in the same “secure” unit at Kadhimiya where Nouri al-Maliki’s people, in an echo of Saddamite Baathist terror, now hang their victims. The same end, in the same place, befell other exponents of the deposed regime: Barzan al-Tikriti, Awad Hamed al-Bandar and Taha Yassin Ramadan, executed in 2007.

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