September 6th, 2008

THE DEATH PENALTY/EVERYONE GROUP LAUNCHES AN INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO SAVE THE LIFE OF REGINALD BLANTON, IMPRISONED ON DEATH ROW IN TEXAS

THE LEADERS OF THE GROUP: “TIME IS RUNNING OUT, THE JUDGES COULD FIX THE DATE FOR THE MURDER OF AN INNOCENT PERSON”. FROM TODAY ONLINE ON WWW.EVERYONEGROUP.COM AND SOON IN INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS THE SHORT FILM “MAKWAN”, A PROTEST AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY

After its recent appeal to the Democratic candidate to the US Presidency, Barack Obama, and the United Nations, EveryOne Group is now appealing to civil society to ask the judges of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to reopen the case of Reginald Blanton, a 27-year-old African American who has been on death row for the last seven years in Polunsky Prison in Livingston, Texas, accused of the murder of a close friend.
EveryOne has posted a petition on www.petitiononline.com/reggie, which has already received the support of various exponents of human rights, among whom the italian leader of the Radical Party Marco Pannella; the Radical Party senator elected with the PD, Marco Perduca, the Vice-President of the Nonviolent Radical Party Transnational and Transparty; prominent representatives of Amnesty International; the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement; and personalities from international politics and culture. “EveryOne Group has gone into action to support my cry for justice” commented Reginald Blanton from jail.

“It is now essential that our international organization is joined by other activist groups and people from all over the world: only in this way can we make up for this terrible and unjust sentence. We have evidence of the serious abuse committed by the authorities towards the prisoner on Death Row, as well as numerous procedural flaws to be attributed to the US legal system” explain the leaders of EveryOne Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau. EveryOne believes Reginald Blanton is innocent, as do the activists of Amnesty International and several organizations fighting against the death penalty. This fact makes the sentence doubly unjust,” they add. He was sentenced on the basis of racial prejudice, without any evidence, and by a jury of white people. Reginald belonged to a gang, which the American institutions, and Texas in particular, fight with a severity that often turns to prejudice.
“It is important” continue EveryOne “that every citizen who believes in the values of freedom, equality and justice sign this petition and put it around as much as possible, to ask Texas, the United States and all the countries that apply the death penalty to stop an atrocity that causes lots of innocent victims every year, and to ask them to come back to the path of civility and a respect for human rights”.
Last August 25th – while the EveryOne Campaign to save Reginald’s life was underway on websites and in newspapers in Texas – Blanton’s lawyers stood before the committee of three judges of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where they had the possibility to speak on behalf of the condemned prisoner and ask that his case be reopened, with an accurate re-evaluation of the evidence in his defence and with a jury of his peers.
“I was present at the hearing”, Mr André Blanton, Reginald’s older brother told EveryOne, “and I believe the judges finally detected a violation of the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution: Reginald was not judged in an impartial manner”.
In the meantime the judges have reserved a decision, but they could also fix, at any day, the date for the lethal injection. For Reginald’s Blanton’s case, EveryOne has once more undertaken the international “Makwan Project” campaign for the abolition of the death penalty throughout the world and has launched the exclusive short film “Makwan. A Letter from Paradise” on www.everyonegroup.com. The film by Roberto Malini and Dario Picciau, is in memory of Makwan Mouloudzadeh, the 21-year-old Iranian boy who was hung on December 5th, 2007 in Iran, accused of “lavat”, homosexuality. The short film has been invited to take part in festivals throughout the world, where it will take its hymn to life, speaking out against the atrocity of the death penalty.
“We are for the abolition of the death penalty, without exception” continue the activists of EveryOne, “because murder and bloodshed are always the antithesis to justice.
What is more, it is essential to consider the impossibility, by the police and legal systems, to ascertain the guilt of a defendant beyond all shadow of doubt; the prejudice that is inevitably present in some members of a jury; and the fact that any human being found guilty of a crime has a right to be rehabilitated. All this makes the death penalty a medieval legacy which civil society should do away with,” say the activists.

For further information:
www.petitiononline.com/reggie
EveryOne Group
Tel: (+ 39) 334 3449180 - (+ 39) 331 3585406
www.everyonegroup.com ::  info@everyonegroup.com