HANDS OFF CAIN MISSION IN ZAMBIA FOR ABOLITION AND UN MORATORIUM

October 12, 2010: a delegation from Hands Off Cain is now in Zambia, the first step in a mission against the death penalty in Africa. The mission's goal is also  to achieve consensus in favour of the new UN resolution for the moratorium on executions.
The delegation, composed of Radical parliamentarians Elizabetta Zamparutti and Marco Perduca, took part in the “Death Has No Appeal” forum  organised by the European Union at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka this morning. Senator Marco Perduca gave a report on the abolition of the mandatory death penalty, that in Zambia is still in use and, for certain types of crimes, even excludes the possibility of judges giving a different punishment. Elisabetta Zamparutti is participating in the Hands Off Cain project for the abolition of the death penalty in Africa and the initiative at the United Nations General Assembly that has just opened. The assembly has a new Resolution for the Universal Moratorium on capital punishment in its orders of the day.
After the EU forum, the Hands Off Cain delegation visited the “Mukobeko” maximum security prison where death row inmates in Zambia are kept. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Elisabetta Zamparutti and Marco Perduca will meet the Parliamentary majority leader Vernon J. Mwaanga and on Thursday they meet foreign minister Kabinga Pande.
In the next few weeks the Hands Off Cain mission goes to all three African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo and Mali. (Sources: HOC, 12/10/2010)