81 years after Sacco & Vanzetti
Vigil against the death penalty

On 23 August 2008, on the occasion of the 81^st anniversary of the killing of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici will be participating in a vigil organized by the Associazione Sacco & Vanzetti together with Amnesty International, Nessuno Tocchi Caino and the World Coalition Against The Death Penalty.

The vigil is dedicated to Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, an Afghan journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy, and will be held in Piazza Papa Giovanni Paolo II in Torremaggiore (Apulia, Italy) from 8.30pm on 22 August until 1.00am on 23 August. On that date, 81 years ago, Nicola Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti died in the electric chair in Charleston at 12.19 and 12.26am respectively, after a show trial which was the result of racism and the climate of hatred and intolerance in America in the 1920s against immigrant workers, particularly anarchists.

Not only the sad case of Sayed in Afghanistan, but also all the other sad stories of violated rights in China, Myanmar, Iran, the USA, Iraq, Somalia and the war and hunger in Darfur, are all witness to the continuing importance of keeping the memory of their sacrifice alive in our collective memory.

Almost 60 after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948, in an Italy which has always declared its respect for human rights, episodes of racism and intolerance (including institutional racism and intolerance), the violation of the human rights of asylum-seekers and Roma, the violation of human rights in prisons and immigrant detention centres, the day work and untramelled exploitation on farms, all testify to the importance even today of the fate of the two Italian anarchists murdered in America, of their cry for freedom, dignity and social justice.