2020 Olympic Moratorium on capital executions, proposed in the Japanese Parliament by Mario Marazziti, coordinator of the Worldwide Campaign against the Death Penalty of the Sant'Egidio Community and endorsed by the Interparliamentary Group on the Future of the Death Penalty in Japan.
On the eve of the arrival of Pope Francis in Japan, the Community of Sant'Egidio, joined by the leaders of the All-Party Parliamentary Group to consider the Future of the Death Penalty in Japan and the JFBA, the National Association of Lawyers of Japan and several representatives of Japanese Buddhism and personality, has endorsed the International No Justice Without Life Symposium in the International Congress Hall of the Japanese Diet, the Parliament of Japan.
The initiative is part of the preparation and support for the papal journey, which puts at the centre the defence of life and human dignity in every circumstance.
In the opening keynote address, Marazziti has launched an Appeal for a 2020 Olympic Moratorium on capital punishment. The Appeal was made official and relaunched by representatives of both majority and opposition parties, in view of a deeper reflection on the Japanese judicial system - still linked to the excessive phenomenon of confessions released possibly pressure, during police detention and interrogations lasting sometime early one month, with the enormous possibility of false confessions, has emerged in clamorous court cases - towards the total abolition of the death penalty in Japan.
