<nettime> NETSTRIKE 214.T AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY

[Tommaso Tozzi <t.tozzi@ecn.org>]

[italian and spanish translation deleted]


1786--->2000
NETSTRIKE 214.T
AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY
----------------------------

Tommaso Tozzi and Giacomo Verde, with the co-operation of many groups and
national and international associations, would like to invite you all to
participate to a VIRTUAL RALLY AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY to protest
against the sites of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and of the
State of Texas, which will be held within an art event on November 30th
2000, from 18:00 to 19:00 hrs. The virtual rally will happen on occasion
of a real one sponsored by the Tuscany Region (Florence, Fortezza da
Basso) to celebrate the anniversary of the renunciation to the death
penalty by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1786 (the first country in the
world). The artists also suggest repeating the netstrike against the sites
of all those countries where the death penalty is still provided for by
the law (see the enclosed LIST OF COUNTRIES WHERE THE DEATH PENALTY IS
STILL PROVIDED FOR BY THE LAW).

"It seems to me absurd that the law, which is the expression of public
will, and despises and punishes homicide, commit one themselves, and, to
discourage citizens from committing assassinations, order public
assassination". Cesare Beccaria used these words in 1764 to denounce the
barbaric and useless character of the death penalty: a few years later, in
1786, the Grand Duke of Tuscany abolished the death penalty in his state.

More than two hundred years later, 11,000 men and women are awaiting
execution in one of the 118 Countries which still have the death penalty.
Only in 1998 at least 1625 State homicides were committed and nearly 4000
people were condemned to death.

It is time to say stop to an ineffective punishment which transforms
society and the State into assassins, putting them on the same plane as
the criminal.

It is time for the world's civil society to make its voice heard. It is
time for you to do your bit too: just click from home - together with
hundred of other people in the whole world - to jam the site and break it
down. The purpose of the rally is to pressurise the Public bodies of those
countries which still provide for the death penalty, so they immediately
put off pending executions and adopt provisions to definitively abolish
the death penalty from their legal systems.

The netstrike and its motivations have been communicated both to the
representatives of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the State of
Texas sites and the main international media and organisations able of
spreading the news both pre-emptively and successively.

So connecting repeatedly (at the same time as thousands of other people in
the whole world) to these websites:

Texas Department of Criminal Justice
http://tdcj.state.tx.us/

or

State of Texas
http://www.state.tx.us/

from 18:00 to 19:00 hrs.
of 30 November 2000

will have the effect of peacefully jamming and blocking the above
mentioned site in sign of protest, the same way as thousands of people
take to the streets and block the traffic (see the following ADVICE FOR
EFFECTIVE NETSTRIKE).

If you want to follow the phases of the rally and comment them online, you
can arrange to meet other participating people during the electronic rally
in a chatline or irc channel (a historical netstrikers' meeting point is,
for example, the #Hackit99 channel on the www.ecn.org server).

For any further information on the netstrike:

http://www.netstrike.it/214t/

-------------------------------
ADVICE FOR EFFECTIVE NETSTRIKE
-------------------------------

For more effective participation to the netstrike it is advisable to
follow these technical guidelines:

- Do not set any proxy for your connection.

- Set your browser's cache to 0.

- Keep on pressing the Reload button.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF COUNTRIES WHERE THE DEATH PENALTY IS STILL PROVIDED FOR
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Afghanistan, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Bahamas,
Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Byelorussia, Botswana,
Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, Comores, North Korea, South
Korea, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Eritrea, Ethiopia ,
Philippines, Gabon, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Guatemala, Guinea,
Equatorial Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan,
Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Malawi,
Malaysia, Morocco, Mauritania, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan,
Qatar, Dem. Rep. Congo, People's Rep. Of China, Rwanda, Russia, Saint
Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Sierra
Leone, Singapore, Syria, Somalia, United States of America, Sudan,
Swaziland, Tadzhikistan, Thailand, Taiwan, Tanzania, Palestinian Authority
Territories, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uganda, Uzbekistan,
Vietnam, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tommaso Tozzi (http://www.strano.net/tozzi.htm)
Giacomo Verde (http://www.verdegiac.org/).

(english translation Nisha Maggioni)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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