ABSTRACT: The special motion presented by Basile Guissou, Anna Niedwiecka, Gaoussou Ouattara, Ferencz Parcz and Paolo Pietrosanti (1), in view of the declarations of the Secretary of the Italian Christian Democrats in favor of the death penalty, sets January 6 in Rome as the date for a non-violent demonstration against the death penalty, and decides to send a message to the chiefs of state of all countries that have a death penalty. The motion was approved by acclamation.

The Federal Council of the Radical Party, meeting in Rome on January 2 -7, 1990,

in view of the declaration made by Arnaldo Forlani, Secretary of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, in favor of restoring the death penalty into Italian law for a number of crimes committed in peace time;

convenes for tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. - thus without interrupting the Federal Council's regular work presently underway - a non-violent demonstration in Piazza del Gesù in Rome, in front of the Christian Democrats' headquarters, to ask Forlani to retract that statement in an entirely decisive and definitive manner, also out of respect for the total opposition that the Christian Democrats have always expressed in regard to the death penalty.

It extends a warm invitation to Italian Catholics and all citizens - especially to members of all parties, to unions, to the associations and agencies that in recent years have sponsored with the Radical Party the great campaign to save the life of Paula Cooper and to the "Do Not Kill Organisation" - to make themselves heard so that at least in this country the opposition to this lugubrious sanction can no longer be put into question.

The Federal Council of the Radical Party at the same time decides to send the following message immediately to the heads of state and to the members of parliament of those countries whose laws provide for the death penalty, and in particular to:

- Belgium

- Brazil

- Burkina Faso

- Czechoslovakia

- Hungary

- Israel

- Italy

- Nigeria

- Poland

- The Ivory Coast

- The Soviet Union

- The United States of America

- Yugoslavia

Citizens of these countries are present at these sessions of the Radical Party.

<< The Transnational Radical Party asks that legal proceedings begin immediately to remove the death penalty from the juridical ordinances of your country, in the name of the sanctity of human life, in the name of the absolute imperative of Do Not Kill, assumed by the Radical Party as its own with no exceptions whatsoever, and affirms that the very existence of the legislative provision for capital punishment, even if not applied, is an explicit and serious obstacle to communal civil life.>>

----------------------------------------------------------------1) All federal councilors of the Radical Party.