The World Day against the Death Penalty is celebrated in an international context of increasing violence, terrorism and conflicts everywhere. Fifty-nine ongoing wars, according to the United Nations, and the real risk of escalation into a larger global conflict that, as Andrea Riccardi recently wrote, seems to many ‘’an inescapable destiny to which too many are anaesthetised‘’. (read more- IT)
As was said at the recent International Meeting for Peace in Paris, in the forum dedicated to the theme ‘People's lives are worth less and less’. ‘The first immediate dismay, the first ‘cries for peace’, were followed by resignation, detachment, impassivity. We must tell ourselves: we have entered a new historical era, dominated by war regimes. And this has consequences not only on the geopolitical scene, but also on our perception of others and of ourselves, on our humanity’. (read Forum 13 texts)
We are aware that getting used to war and its violence creates the conditions for the long path towards abolition to be interrupted, that there are regressions at the level of human rights and even relapses at the judicial level, as shown by the adoption of military laws of war in some states, martial law or the recent reintroduction of the death penalty in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Therefore, it is necessary today more than ever to continue the battle against the death penalty with perseverance and creativity. A battle for life, for civilisation, for turning away from a culture of death.
It is necessary to build on the path towards the abolition of the death penalty by fostering the development of civil and legal awareness. The coming months are crucial in this regard to support the proposal for a universal moratorium on which the United Nations will pronounce in the coming months.
Standing up against the invasion of death is the daily work of the Community of Sant'Egidio throughout the world. It consists of a vast series of initiatives - ranging from a capillary presence in prisons, to promoting the correspondence of thousands of people from all over the world with those condemned to death, to sending appeals against executions, to involving civil society with the Cities for Life movement of thousands of cities around the world that publicly express their opposition to the death penalty in their own system.
In order to support this vast international movement against all forms of execution and in favour of all life, Sant'Egidio also promotes periodic conferences between Ministers of Justice from abolitionist and retentionist countries. The next international conference, ‘No justice without life’ will be in Rome on 28 and 29 November 2024.
