ABOUT US
Hands Off Cain — Spes contra spem is a radical, nonviolent, transnational, transparty and non-profit association, founded in Brussels in 1993. We fight for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide, of life imprisonment without parole, of death caused by punishment and of prevention when it is worse than the punishment itself. We are members of the Council of Europe and with the UN-ECOSOC Special Consultative Status.
ABOUT US
The name is inspired by the Genesis: «And the Lord set a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him». Hands off Cain means justice without vengeance. We achieved our first great milestone in 2007, when the United Nations General Assembly approved the Resolution for a Universal Moratorium on executions - not an abolition imposed by decree but through dialogue. In 2019, we obtained, from the European Court of Human Rights, a ruling that affirmed the "right to hope" against life imprisonment without parole. Today, we are committed to abolishing prisons in the sense of the original meaning of the word "carcar", to bury, to entomb. In other words, "a cemetery of the living", as Filippo Turati defined them back in 1904. Not only the abolition of the death penalty, of life imprisonment without parole and a de facto death sentence through a life lost in a horrifying prison system, Hands Off Cain also takes on Italy's regime of prevention when it proves worse than the punishments themselves.
HONORARY PRESIDENCY
GENERAL COUNCIL
Porzia Addabbo Gianni Alemanno Matteo Angioli Massimo Arlechino Umberto Baccolo Vito Baglio Elena Baldi Sandro Barchiesi Marco Beltrandi Padre Guido Bertagna Domenico Bilotti Salvatore Bonadonna Anna Briganti Pasquale Bronzo Maria Brucale Antonio Buonfiglio Cesare Burdese Santo Cambareri Federico Canziani Pietro Cavallotti Federico Celano Paolo Cesari Marco Clarke Antonio Coniglio Claudio Conte Raffaele Conte Donatella Corleo Fabrizio Costarella Ambrogio Crespi Andrea Cuzzocrea Tonino D'Angelo Vincent Delbos Nino Di Guardo Vincenzo Di Paolo Gianpietro Doni Luca Doniselli Andreana Esposito Fabio Falbo Corrado Favara Ester Ferdeghini Maria Chiara Gadda Davide Galliani Salvatore Galluzzo Bruno Gambardella Alessandro Gargiulo Roberto Giachetti Carmen Gualtieri Norberto Guerriero Vincenzo Improta Paolo Ingrao Giuseppe La Gala Baldassare Lauria Gianluca Liut Renzo Magosso Tiziana Maiolo Francesca Mambro Silvja Manzi Enrico Marignani Antonella Mascia Diego Mazzola Bruno Mellano Esmail Mohades Nicla Moiraghi Francesco Morelli Davide Mosso Giuseppe Napoli Andrea Nicolosi Cosimo Palumbo Orazio Paolello Mauro Paolinelli Patrizia Patrizi Stefano Petrella Maria Teresa Pintus Maurizio Pistorio Bianca Piscolla Renata Polverini Andrea Pugiotto Gaetano Puzzangaro Elisabetta Rampelli Roberto Rampi Sabrina Renna Angelo Riccardi Giorgia Ricci Mimmo Risica Fulvio Rizzo Thomas Roeth Alessandro Rosasco Carla Rossi Mara Rossi Giuseppe Rossodivita Blanca Ruiz-Zorrilla don Vincenzo Russo Marco Scurria Emiliano Silvestri Sonia Sommacal Marco Sorbara Raffaella Stacciarini Guglielmo Starace Lorenzo Strik-Lievers Giovanni Terzi Azalen Tomaselli Michele Vaira Clara Veneto Simona Ventura Matteo Zamboni Pierdonato Zito
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
President
President of Hands Off Cain, for more than fifty years a leading figure in the radical battles for civil rights and for the dignity of people in prison. A nonviolent activist and former member of parliament, she has made hunger strikes and civil disobedience her tools of political action.
Secretary
Co-founder (1993) and Secretary of Hands off Cain, a nonviolent leader, former member of parliament and author of investigative books on the distortions of the anti-mafia legal system.
Treasurer
Co-founder (1993) and Treasurer of Hands off Cain (since 2003), former member of parliament and member of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).
DELEGATED RESPONSIBILITIES
TREASURY, WITH RESPONSIBILITY FOR FUNDRAISING AND THE INTERNET
Entrepreneur. Founder of Facile.it and Prima Assicurazioni. Co-founder of the Fondazione Laura e Alberto Genovese ETS
SECRETARIAT, RESPONSIBLE FOR COMMUNICATION AND VOLUNTEERS
Founder and president of the Movimento Italiano Diritti Detenuti. Since 2021 a university tutor in Milan's prisons.
TURNING ABSENCE INTO PRESENCE
Marco Pannella, founder of Hands Off Cain, died on 19 May 2016. He made nonviolence a method of political action: hunger and thirst strikes; dialogue with the adversary, never to defeat them but to persuade them; battles for the life of rights and for the right to life, against the death penalty and death as punishment. A life spent on the side of the most vulnerable, beginning with prisoners. His presence continues in our struggles, because he taught us not to mourn absences, but to respond to them with presences.
«When you are gone, what matters is not how much you are missed, but how many people turn your absence into a presence.»
— MARCO PANNELLA, 2016
OUR STORY
1993
Hands off Cain is born as a league of citizens and parliamentarians for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide.
1994
First UN campaign for a universal moratorium on executions. The resolution is rejected for 8 votes. Among them, also abolitionist countries.
1995
Hands Off Cain, in partnership with the Arab Institute for Human Rights, organizes, in Tunis, the first Pan-Arab Conference on the death penalty. Intellectuals, jurists and parliamentarians from the Arabic countries conclude that "there are no insurmountable obstacles, in the foundations of the culture or in the legislation of Arab countries, to the abolition of the death penalty."
1996
Hands Off Cain, in partnership with Memorial, the Human Rights Commission and the Clemency Commission under the President of the Russian Federation, organizes, in Moscow, a conference on the moratorium on executions and living conditions in prisons.
1997
The first edition of the Hands Off Cain Report "The Death Penalty Worldwide" is launched, giving an account of the most significant developments regarding the practice of the death penalty at the global level.
1998
Hands Off Cain's missions begin in countries on every continent in support of the pro-moratorium vote.
2000
"We, on death row" campaign by Oliviero Toscani using images of death row inmates in the United States.
2006
Launch of the campaign "Hands Off Saddam" to avoid the execution of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, supported by Marco Pannella's hunger and thirst strike.
2007
The UN General Assembly approves the moratorium resolution for the first time, on 18 December, with 104 votes in favour, 54 against and 29 abstentions (5 absent at the moment of vote, up to 192 Member States).
2011
Hands Off Cain, in partnership with the Government of Rwanda, organizes the conference on the death penalty in Africa in Kigali, attended by representatives from 20 countries in southern, central and eastern Africa.
2013
The European Court of human rights delivers the judgment Torreggiani vs Italy on prison overcrowding.
2014
Hands Off Cain, in partnership with the Government of Sierra Leone, organizes the Regional Conference on the Abolition and Moratorium of the Death Penalty in Freetown, and, with the Government of Benin, the Continental Conference on the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Africa in Cotonou.
2015
Launch of the "Spes contra spem" campaign to overcome life imprisonment without parole.
2019
The European Court of human rights delivers the judgment Viola vs Italy on life imprisonment without parole.
2021
Launch of the campaign "When prevention is worse than punishment" for a reform of preventive, interdictory measures and dissolution of local councils on grounds of mafia.
2023
"Visiting prisoners": over 100 visits a year to penal institutions to monitor and raise awareness of the living conditions of the detained and the working conditions of the detaining staff.
2026
166 countries abolitionist de facto and de jure of the death penalty. 33 retentionist.