Join “Cities for Life - Cities Against the Death Penalty” campaign on November 30 (VIDEO)
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- Tamara Chikunova and "Viasna" activists Iryna Smiayan-Semianiuk, Valiantsin Steranovich and Andrei Paluda
The campaign “Human Rights Defenders against the Death Penalty in Belarus” urges everyone to join the initiative “Cities for Life - Cities Against the Death Penalty”, which will take place on November 30.
The initiator of the annual event is the Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio – one of the largest campaigns struggling for the inalienable right to life.
The date was chosen because on this day in 1786 the Italian Duchy of Tuscany for the first time in the history of European states abolished the death penalty.
The event is held in those countries where the death penalty is no longer applied in practice: the cities without the death penalty illuminate their famous architectural monuments and squares in support of the right to life. On this day, concerts, meetings, demonstrations, discussions on the death penalty are held worldwide. In this way, human rights defenders, civil society activists and ordinary citizens try to prove that this kind of punishment is unacceptable in all cases without exception: “Any death sentence is an affront to human dignity, any penalty is a sign of a culture of violence, not a means of suppressing it.”
The first global event was held in 2002.
Despite the fact that the Belarusian authorities have not abandoned the death penalty, human rights defenders and civil society activists join this initiative with the hope that the Belarusian society will actively speak out against this inhumane punishment.
To join the campaign “Cities for Life - Cities Against the Death Penalty” you can:
- Make a selfie in your native city on the background of a famous building, post the image in any social network with the hashtags #citiesforlife #ЗаЖыццё
- Download and post the campaign’s logo with the hashtags #citiesforlife #ЗаЖыццё
- Follow the link and paste picbadges on your photos on Facebook
- Download and print the images, have your picture taken with them and post them on your social networks account with the hashtags #citiesforlife #ЗаЖыццё
- Sign a petition against the death penalty in Belarus
We are grateful to all the indifferent defenders of the right to life!
