The international conference “No Justice without life”, organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio with the participation of the Embassy of Italy, was recently held in the city of Manila. The event, following up on a conference on the same topic in Tokyo, aimed to raise awareness of the cause in the countries of Asia using the Philippines as a platform, one of the few and first countries in the region to eliminate capital punishment. As ambassador Massimo Rostagno pointed out “aside from Sant’Egidio’s key role, Italy was highly visible and played an important part in this event”.
Italy’s commitment to abolition of the death penalty
In particular, the diplomat stressed, “it foregrounded Italy’s stance on the issue of the death penalty and our long-running battle for its abolition within the framework of the United Nations”. The participants present also included President of the Human Rights Committee of the Italian Lower House, and former long-time spokesman for the Community of Sant’Egidio, Mario Marazziti. “Today 98 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes”, Marazziti asserted. “For some it still exists in their war codes and for many others in their penal codes, but they stopped applying it decades ago. We can say that the death penalty is no longer used in at least 140 countries, seven times the number that used it 50 years ago”.
