October 10th Day Against the Death Penalty: Civil Society Engagement on the rise

From tomorrow, World Day for Abolition, there will be increased visits to death rows on different continents - The mobilisation of civil society is growing: since the beginning of 2019 a thousand people have asked the Community to correspond with a convicted person, furthermore, many signatures have been collected to ask for an end to executions.

The Community of Sant'Egidio, for years close to those who are condemned to death on different continents, participates in the World Day of tomorrow against the death penalty by increasing, until the end of October, visits to death rows in the United States and several African countries.
Before those who want to maintain or even, in some cases, reintroduce the death penalty, it is necessary to keep alive, at every level of society, institutions and governments, this great commitment of Civilization and Humanity that has allowed in recent years to take important steps towards the total abolition of the death penalty. Encouraging signs come from California, which has suspended all execution and dismantled the local death row. While the American Church has also mobilized for the abolitionist campaign. A delegation from Sant'Egidio is currently in Washington to draw, along with other organizations, possible paths of abolition in the states of the federation in which it is still in force. We are also encouraged by the decision of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia to ask Republika Srpska to remove from its laws any reference to the death penalty.
In recent months the interest of civil society in the abolition of the death penalty has also been confirmed, with a thousand people who have turned to Sant'Egidio only since the beginning of the year to ask to correspond with a person sentenced to death. In addition, thousands of citizens, in Europe and throughout the world, have mobilised in defence of the lives of some condemned people, signing appeals to stop certain executions.