We continue to collect signatures for a world-wide Moratorium on the Death Penalty 

With your help, in just over a year we’ve managed to collect 2,000,000 signatures, in 130 countries. Each signature represents a conscience which has been won over to the value of life and right; together they represent a movement of opinion and international pressure which has overcome cultural, geographical and political boundaries, and the barriers of religious belief. 

Such a movement must grow: it represents an orientation for those who are undecided, a reference point for those who have been working for some time to end the death penalty, and a sign of hope in countries which have only recently begun to question this useless and cruel barbarism that is the death penalty.

Unfortunately, at the session of the General Assembly of the United Nations between November and December 1999, no vote was taken on the European Union resolution which proposed a world-wide suspension of executions. However, in December 1999 three countries abolished the death penalty: Albania, Turkmenistan and Ukraine. In the last 2 years, El Salvador, Bulgaria and Lithuania have removed capital punishment from the list of possible punishments. The partial progress throughout the last year of the Millennium, shows a significant increase of the consensus for this proposal, and this encourages us to continue in strength and with greater intensity. Turkey seems to be rethinking its stance on the death penalty. Capital sentences have been commuted to life sentences in Russia and, recently, in Thailand and Nigeria. In the meantime, the Colosseum, one of the most famous monuments in world, has become a leaving witness to life: a light is lit every time a step is taken against the death penalty and human lives are saved. 

The Pope has intensified his pronouncements against the death penalty. The media have continued to echo this appeal so that the Third Millennium will be marked by a step forward in civilization, on analogy to the 19th century which saw the abolition of slavery.

The international campaign on the moratorium has broken down barriers in countries where even a hypothetical rethinking on the death penalty was considered unimaginable. The campaign strengthens the commitment of individuals and associations; it encourages countries which have taken courageous positions and  made progress in their rulings. The campaign has seen the involvement of innumerable personalities from the political, cultural and artistic worlds. It keeps the attention of the world and the media alive. 

So the campaign continues and grows with the hope of collecting  10 million signatures in the year 2000 to stop the death penalty worldwide.