Cities for Life: a personal testimony

‘Cities for Life’ is the name of an annual anti-death penalty event sponsored by the St Egidio Catholic lay community at the end of November and supported by over 1.400 towns and cities across the globe. Rome’s Colosseum and other famous buildings in all those different locations are lit up to raise awareness of the ongoing campaign for a worldwide moratorium on the use of capital punishment.
The event on Wednesday evening followed a two day meeting of Justice Ministers from many different nations discussing ways of moving towards such an abolitionist position. Earlier this week Pope Benedict XVI offered his support to the meeting saying he hoped it would “encourage the political and legislative initiatives being promoted in a growing number of countries to eliminate the death penalty and to continue the substantive progress made in conforming penal law both to the human dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order”
Among those speaking at the ‘Cities for Life’ event this year was a young Bangladeshi American citizen who almost lost his life in a retaliatory shooting following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Despite being blinded in one eye, Rais Bhuiyan, a devout Muslim, decided to forgive his attacker and become a campaigner against the use of the death penalty in the United States. He talked to Luca Attanasio about his dramatic experience …

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