12 October 2011 :

3.30pm
Via di Torre Argentina 76
Rome
 
Participants:
 
TSAKHIA ELBEGDORJ, President of Mongolia, “Abolitionist of the Year 2011”
EMMA BONINO, Senate Vice President
VINCENZO SCOTTI, Foreign Affairs Under-secretary
MARCO PANNELLA, Hands Off Cain President
SERGIO D’ELIA, Hands Off Cain Secretary
ELISABETTA ZAMPARUTTI, Radical Parliamentarian and Hands Off Cain Treasurer
 
Italian parliamentarians and ambassadors from various countries will also be present.
 
The prize for “Abolitionist of the Year 2011” was awarded by Hands Off Cain to the President of Mongolia, Tsakhia Elbegdorj, for having introduced in 2010 a moratorium on capital punishment. The prize recognises the person with the strongest commitment to the movement for a moratorium on capital punishment and the abolition of the death penalty.
Tsakhia Elbegdorj was the founder of Mongolia’s Liberty Center for human rights and freedom of expression and has contributed to the drafting of the new constitution, thanks to which Mongolia became the first constitutional democracy in Central Asia. In 2009 he won the election as a candidate of the Democratic Party, becoming Mongolia's first president to not be a member of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party.
His political history is a validation of how the abolition of the death penalty coincides with the fight for the affirmation of democracy and of the rule of law. It also reinforces Hands Off Cain's new perspective for action in Asia, the continent where almost all global executions take place. Until now, the abolitionist movement has found Asia to be impenetrable.
During the event, updated data on the death penalty and the objectives of Hands Off Cain's campaign for the realisation of the UN resolution for the universal Moratorium on capital punishment will also be presented.