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Italy Versus Capital Punishment

Rome Push for Ban Gains Steam

Italy is finding more and more support in its bid for an international moratorium on the death penalty. Rome hopes to get the explicit support of all 27 European Union members at a meeting later this week in Dresden.

Even if the effort seems unlikely to succeed, Italy over the weekend continued its push to get the United Nations to impose a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. On Saturday evening, the Colosseum in Rome was lit up to highlight the effort and the Italians hope to get the backing of the European Union for a UN General Assembly vote on the issue during a meeting of foreign ministry officials on Jan. 11-12 in Dresden. And it is beginning to look like they may have widespread support.

The Italian push began on Jan. 2, just a few days after the execution of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. The hanging, images of which were immediately made available across the world, was criticized by a wide variety of countries and non-governmental organizations. Condemnation only increased when a mobile phone video of the hanging made by one of the guards surfaced showing that Saddam was insulted as he stood on the gallows awaiting his death.

"I believe (abolishing the death penalty) must constitute one of the top commitments of our international efforts because it is urgent to have an initiative to put an end to the barbarianism of the death penalty," Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema told the Italian news agency ANSA last week.

Italy is hoping that the global disgust over the way the execution was carried out will result in political pressure on those countries which still use the death penalty. Rome is hoping its new position as a temporary member of the UN Security Council may be of some assistance and also wants to get EU backing for its initiative.

The European Union has long opposed the death penalty and countries must abolish the practice before they are allowed to become members. But many members have been uncomfortable with the idea of telling other countries how to construct their justice systems. Britain has been loathe to challenge the United States on the issue. Now though, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries support the Italian initiative, according to a report in DER SPIEGEL. And even British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his likely successor Gordon Brown have voiced their discomfort with the manner in which Saddam Hussein's execution was carried out.

"I think we can sum this up. It was deplorable, unacceptable," Blair said on Sunday.

The UN is officially opposed to the application of the death penalty. New UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday urged the Iraqi government -- in a letter to the country's UN ambassador -- to grant a stay of execution to the two Saddam aides currently awaiting their hangings. Ban had raised hackles soon after Saddam's execution by saying that it was up to individual countries as to whether they used the death penalty or not.

The taunting of Saddam on the gallows led to protests across the Sunni Muslim world and led to a number of condemnations of the Iraqi justice system; the most recent censure was that on Sunday by the Jordanian parliament which criticized the timing of the execution just prior to the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha.

Saddam's execution aside, the wave of criticism against the death penalty has been growing in recent years. In the United States, where a majority of the population supports capital punishment, a number of states have imposed a temporary moratorium so that execution methods can be examined to determine if they are humane. The state of New Jersey last week announced that in may ban capital punishment in the state and lethal injection is currently under scrutiny in the US.

Italy has long been on the forefront of the fight against the death penalty. The Colosseum, which 2,000 years ago hosted deadly combat among gladiators, has since 1999 been lit up every time a death sentence has been carried out in the world.

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