«Let’s sentence to death the death penalty, with the accusation of awful crime against life, which is sacred and inviolable. Nothing and nobody can justify the killing of a person!» - Swami Roberto
25th june 2007: Italy convinced Europe: the 27 Ministers of the Foreign Affairs of the European Union have agreed unanimously to present a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty on the next UN general assembly. The President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano has spoken again on this subject: “The campaign for the abolition of the death penalty is a fundamental battle for common civil progress and for the defence of human rights, in which Italy is strongly engaged”. “In 2006”, remembered Napolitano, “we relaunched the subject and the EU committed itself to promote an agreement on the moratorium, which has been subscribed by 93 Countries so far”. The President is also hoping that African Countries will join Europe in a campaign for the presentation of the resolution to UN general assembly.
15th November 2007: The Third Commission of the UN General Assembly has approved adopted and voted for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. A total of 99 countries voted for a suspension of capital punishment worldwide, while 52 voted against and 33 abstained. This is an historical step marking a point of no return in the long civil battle to stop the injustice and horror of the death penalty. It is therefore important to continue our support to this campaign for the triumph of a culture of life and respect of human rights.
18th December 2007: The world has said “NO” to the death penalty. Today the UN General Assembly has passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty; the vote was 104-54 with 29 abstentions. The President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano has defined this as “a success for Italy and Europe which have ‘wished strongly’ for a UN moratorium on the death penalty”. An international debate with the aim of abolishing capital punishment can now be opened.
Join the international campaign promoted by the Community of Sant’Egidio.
Justice without revenge
Excerpted from Swami Roberto’s speechThe sad reality unfortunately includes a lot of people who believe in the “revenge” of capital punishment and scandalously there are many amongst them who define themselves as believers in Jesus Christ. In the face of that, one could wonder what the Christian concept of forgiveness means to them… or what their interpretation of the words with which Lord Jesus exhorted not to kill is. Christ never justified revenge! In truth those who show themselves so intransigent in sentencing other’s guilt, without leaving any hope of redemption to the victims of their unquestionable and cynical judgement, are not even aware of how far they are from God’s merciful Love… and of how much, instead, they are supporting a form of hate and violence disguised as justice. By doing so, unfortunately for them, they create a deep karmic bond with those killed by the “injustice” of justice. People accepting even the idea of the death penalty are in fact contributing to the execution of those killed by “civil” laws which are born out of juridical systems evidently fed by this social opinion. Therefore executions of those sentenced to death not only are carried out by the hangman, but also by all who in every part of the world, either to a smaller or greater degree, support this bestial collective idea. Like I was saying before, many burden their individual karma with that dreadful load, making themselves accomplices of very heavy social karma. Even if only one person could be sentenced without allowing him the hope and the possibility to amend himself, know that redemption would be a lie and life a bestial injustice.