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HANDS OFF CAIN DECIDES TO AWARD POPE FRANCIS WITH THE ‘ABOLITIONIST OF THE YEAR’
April 29, 2015: The Hands Off Cain's Abolition of the Year Award is given annually to somebody who, more than anybody else during that year, have distinguished themselves for their commitment to the abolition of the death penalty and to the struggle against inhuman and degrading treatments.
The reasons for Hands Off Cain's decision lie in the fact that Pope Bergoglio's pontificate was inaugurated by the abolition of life imprisonment, and the introduction of the crime of torture in the criminal code of the Holy See. Furthermore, Pope Francis has spoken publicly, in a loud and clear way, against the death penalty, death by penalty and life sentences in general.
In his "lectio magistralis" before the International Association of Penal Law on 23 October 2014, a lecture of extraordinary humanistic, political and legal value, the Pope described life sentence as " a death penalty in disguise”", which should be abolished just like the death penalty, and compared solitary confinement in the so-called "maximum-security prisons" as "a form of torture."
When Hands Off Cain was founded in 1993 by prominent members of the Nonviolent Radical Party to operate against the death penalty all over the world, they were inspired by the passage in the book of Genesis where it is written, “And the Lord set a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him” – and they decided to name the organization " Hands Off Cain " to affirm the value of life, and the dignity of the person as a whole.
By awarding the Prize to the Holy Father, Hands Off Cain recognizes the value of his prodigious words, on which it will continue to work to translate them into concrete steps to finally overcome anachronistic punishments and treatments. This struggle remains all the more necessary, and urgent, if we consider the present context of the death penalty in the world of which the recent executions in Indonesia are the last abhorrent example of how a State can become a Cain. (Sources: HOC, 29/04/2015)
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