PENA MORTE: ONU, GOVERNATORE USA PER MORATORIA

GINEVRA, 1- Un pressante appello per una moratoria   internazionale sulle esecuzioni capitali e' stato rivolto oggi a Ginevra dall'ex governatore dell'Illinois (Usa) George Ryan, intervenuto alla Commissione dell'Onu per i diritti umani.

''L'ho fatto perche' il sistema della pena capitale del mio Stato era - ed e' ancora - guasto, razzista ed impreciso (...).

Su scala mondiale la situazione non e' migliore e in molti paesi e' anche peggio'', ha detto l'ex governatore famoso per aver commutato in prigione a vita la pena di 167 condannati a morte.

Riunita in sessione annuale, la Commissione dovra' pronunciarsi nei prossimi giorni, su una risoluzione promossa dall'Ue per chiedere una moratoria mondiale sulle esecuzioni capitali. ''Nel nome dei diritti umani, dell'etica e della clemenza, perche' non fermare la macchina della pena capitale per studiarne l'accuratezza, l'imparzialita' e gli errori?'', ha chiesto Ryan, Presidente onorario dell'organizzazione non governativa 'Nessuno tocchi Caino', prendendo la parola per il Partito radicale Transnazionale.

E' dal 1997, che la Commissione approva una risoluzione contro la pena di morte. Per Ryan e' giunta l'ora di rafforzare il processo per l'abolizione delle pena capitale con una moratoria stabilita dall'Assemblea generale dell'Onu. ''Quanti innocenti sono morti a causa dell'assenza d'azione?'', ha chiesto.

Secondo i dati di 'Nessuno tocchi Caino' attualmente ci sono 129 paesi membri dell'Onu che in un modo o nell'altro hanno deciso di rinunciare alla pena di morte: 79 sono totalmente abolizionisti, 13 lo sono per i crimini ordinari, uno (Russia) si e' impegnato ad abolire la pena capitale ed osserva una moratoria delle esecuzioni, cinque osservano una moratoria e 31 sono abolizionisti di fatto. I paesi dove proseguono le esecuzioni sono 62.

Di questi, 50 sono sono Stati dove vige un regime dittatoriale, autoritario o illiberale. Il record delle pene capitali spetta alla Cina con 3.138 esecuzioni nel 2002.

By NAOMI KOPPEL

GENEVA -  Former Illinois Governor George Ryan on Monday urged the United Nations to halt executions worldwide because of the danger that innocent people would be put to death.

<In the name of human rights, morality and mercy, I ask why not stop the machinery of death to study its accuracy, its fairness and its faults?> Ryan told the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission.

A former death penalty advocate, Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 men on death row in Illinois last year because he was concerned about the number of people sentenced to death and later found to be innocent.

<My state's capital punishment system was _ and still is _ broken, racist and inaccurate,> said Ryan, a Republican who served as Illinois' chief executive from 1999 to 2003.

<Between 1977 and 2002, 12 men were executed in Illinois while 17 others, originally sentenced to die, were exonerated and freed from prison. That is like flipping a coin, heads or tails, live or die.>  Ryan urged the commission to vote in favor of a resolution, introduced by the European Union, calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty as the first step to eliminating its use globally. Voting on the resolution takes place on Wednesday.

  However, he said, that resolution _ which is passed every year _ is no longer enough, and a moratorium on use of the death penalty should be established by the U.N. General Assembly.

Ryan said a study in his state showed major problems with the death penalty. Some 35 African-Americans were convicted by all-white juries, while 46 men were sentenced to die based on the testimony of a single eyewitness or by jailhouse informants.

Elsewhere in the world, the situation is <no better and in many countries worse,> added Ryan, who is honorary chairman of the anti-death penalty group Hands Off Cain.

<In non-democratic countries, information on the death penalty is a state secret. In some countries, thousands of people each year are sentenced to death and immediately executed, with no opportunity to appeal,> he said.

<The death penalty in these countries is a humanitarian emergency and the international community has the duty and obligation to intervene. A moratorium now will stop all executions and save thousands of lives.

A study by the human rights group Amnesty International found that 1,146 people were executed in 28 countries in 2003, with China, Iran and the United States topping the list of nations that use the death penalty  Ryan, 70, has gained worldwide recognition for halting   Illinois executions, including a nomination for the 2003  and 2004 Nobel Peace Prizes. But he faces trouble at home.

He was indicted in December by a federal grand jury for taking payoffs and gifts in return for letting associates profit from state contracts when he was Illinois secretary of state in the 1990s.

Ryan pleaded innocent to charges of racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, tax fraud, filing false tax returns and making false statements to agents investigating corruption.