ANALYSIS OF THE 2015 REPORT DATA AND OBJECTIVES OF HANDS OFF CAIN

July 31, 2015: The slight increase in executions in 2014 as compared to 2013 is explained by increases recorded in Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, if the trend of the first six months of 2015 were to be confirmed, we would have a record number of executions at the end of the year. This is due, in particular, to escalating numbers of executions recorded in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and once again in Iran and to the resumption of executions in Jordan, Pakistan and Indonesia.
The “War on Drugs” and “War on Terror” have contributed quite substantially to the practice of the death penalty in 2014 and the first six months of 2015.
The election of Hassan Rouhani as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran on 14 June 2013 has led many observers, some human rights defenders and the international community to be optimistic. However, the new Government has not changed its approach regarding the application of the death penalty, and indeed, the rate of executions has risen sharply since the summer of 2013. Since Rouhani took office as President, almost 2,000 prisoners have been executed in Iran: 46% of those executed in 2014 were hanged for drug-related crimes, and this figure has rocketed to 70% in 2015, as of 30 June.
The campaign of Hands Off Cain for the abolition of the death penalty in the world must also include the abolition of the penalty until death, the life sentence.
The fight against the life sentence is part of the fabric of the Radical Party’s struggle and it received a vote of support on 23 October 2014, when – in his address to the Delegates of the International Association of Penal Law – Pope Francis described the life sentence as “a death penalty in disguise,” which should be abolished just like the death penalty.
The issue of the life sentence will be the focus of the debate of Hands Off Cain’s next Congress, which will be held within one year at an Italian penitentiary with a high number of “lifers”, bringing together the highest concentration of inmates serving a life sentence with members of the Association.
Hands Off Cain’s project regarding the life sentence will be carried out on two levels.
The first, on the scientific level, is geared towards documenting the psycho-physical effects on inmates in sustained periods of isolation while awaiting the end of a never-ending sentence, similar to the already well-documented cases of those awaiting the death penalty (the so-called “death-row phenomenon”). As Pope Francis writes, “The lack of sensory stimuli, the total impossibility of communication and the lack of contact with other human beings induce mental and physical suffering such as paranoia, anxiety, depression, weight loss, and significantly increase the suicidal tendency.”
The second, on the legal level, aims to present, with real cases, national appeals - at the Constitutional Court - and supranational - The European Court for Human Rights and the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations - all designed to end life sentencing, at least in its harshest aspects: the so-called “Life Without Parole” (of 1,576 condemned to life, 1,162 are condemned to life without parole, that is, they are excluded by law from any of the benefits reserved for other inmates) and solitary confinement under the Italian prison regime known as 41-bis (about 700 inmates).