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APPEAL BY HANDS OFF CAIN AND THE GLOBAL COMMITTEE TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER LUIGI DI MAIO ABOUT THE IMMINENT VISIT OF MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER
Hands off Cain, in the daily monitoring of the death penalty in the world, documented how Iran carried out as of April 13, the beginning of Ramadan (executions are suspended during the holy month), as many as 107 executions, including 5 women, while there were 284 executions in 2020, including 8 women and 8 minors. In all these years, Iran has always been on the podium of world record holders for the number of executions.
There is not only the death penalty, according to the dictates of Iranian Sharia law, there are also torture, limb amputations, floggings and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments. These are not isolated cases and occur in open conflict with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that Iran has ratified, and which prohibits these practices. Added to this is Iran's cruel and illegal practice of incarcerating dual citizens for use in negotiations. We all remember Ahmadreza Djalali, the 48-year-old researcher at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara sentenced to death for espionage.
For Hands Off Cain and the Global Committee for the Rule of Law-Marco Pannella, the definitive solution to the problem, more than the fight against the death penalty, is the struggle for democracy, the affirmation of the State of law, promotion and respect for political rights and civil liberties.
We know that the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, will be in Rome on Monday as a stop-over on a tour of southern European countries. A journey that takes place at a time when the nuclear negotiations in Vienna have entered a final phase. It also takes place at a time when a very serious crisis is underway between Israel and Palestine, with respect to which both President Rhouani and the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Army, Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, are making anti-Zionist appeals for the Organization of Islamic cooperation (OIC) assumes a "more active role" in the current crisis. In addition, Iran sends rockets to Hamas, which are fired indiscriminately at Israeli civilians.
Pursuing a policy of moderation and continuing to consider Iran as a factor in the stability of the Middle East would be a tragic error. Iran is clearly an element of destabilization of the region and a detonator of violent extremism as well as terrorism. A detonation that reaches us if we think of the recent conviction by a Belgian court of the Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi for attempting an attack, then foiled, in Villepinte, near Paris, in 2018, against the Iranian opposition group of the Mujahideen of the People (Mek), constant object of attempts at annihilation such as the massacre of 30,000 political opponents in 1988.
We ask the Foreign Minister of a country recognized by everyone in the world as the champion of the battle for the Universal Moratorium on the death penalty and for the establishment of the International Criminal Court to place the question of respect for universally recognized Human Rights at the center of the meeting, and to use this opportunity to denounce the most serious violations and ask for the cessation of all invocation and support for the destruction of the State of Israel. |
