08 October 2015 :

The World Day Against the Death Penalty, which will occur on October 10, was celebrated today in Rome with a press conference promoted by Iran Human Rights, Amnesty International, Hands off Cain and the Community of Sant’Egidio.
This year, the 13th edition of the World Day focuses on the application of the death penalty for drug-related offences, to reduce its use.
Hands off Cain participated the press conference with an intervention of Marco Perduca, who denounced what he defined “real and proper lethal effects of the war on drugs”.
Perduca, who gave data updated to Sept. 30, said that so far in 2015 at least 615 people were executed in 4 countries for drug related offenses. At least 546 executions took place in Iran, 55 in Saudi Arabia, and 14 in Indonesia. With its number, Iran alone made 89% of all the executions in the world for drug related crimes. As it is known, data from China are kept secret, therefore there is no known number of executions but, according to Hands off Cain, there has been a sharp drop in recent years.
Furthermore, durind 2014 and the first 9 months of 2015 death sentences have been issued (but not carried on) in 9 more countries: Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.
Hands off Cain pointed out that sentencing to death someone only for drug offenses goes beyond the limits set up by the international law, where death can be provided only for the most serious crimes, while the United Nations Human Rights Council expressly stated that drug offenses are not to be intended as most serious crimes.
Hands off Cain criticized the standing of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, that on one side condemns the use of death sentences, but on the other side keeps on funding governments like that of Iran, that use the money to arrest, sentence and finally execute alleged drug traffickers.
Grave as well is the policy of some European states such as France, Germany and United Kingdom that have not withdrawn funds, as Denmark and Ireland did, from UNODC programs in Iran or Pakistan, well knowing that those funds are at risk of implementing the practice of the death penalty.