Eumans and Cappato: hunger strike to defend the ICC from the USA and Russia

One left today relay hunger strike lasting 63 days, supported by over 3,400 European citizens and with 117 participants already ready to take part in the first phase. The form chosen for the protest is that of Satyagraha: an uninterrupted chain of fasts in which each participant takes on the commitment for a limited period, then passing the baton to the next. Among others, the PD MEP was also present Cecilia Strada.

The mobilization was born in response to the pressure and sanctions that the United States and Russia are exerting against the International Criminal Court through economic and legal instruments of extraterritorial scope. According to the promoters, these measures risk compromising the very operation of the Court, undermining its independence.

“Today, 36 people are starting this fast of dialogue towards Ursula von der Leyen to ask her to defend the International Criminal Court as it is within her power – declared Marco Cappato, president of Eumans – after Orbán had taken Hungary out of the Court, Peter Magyar announced that he wants to bring it back in, therefore there are no more excusesit is a question of political will. We don’t need a European army to defend the International Criminal Court: it can be done immediately. What we ask von der Leyen and all European heads of state and government is to support this proposal, as the European Parliament has already asked.”

“For more than a year we have been asking the European Commission to activate the blocking regulation to defend the International Criminal Court and the Commission has not yet done so and this is enough shameful – he added Cecilia Strada – we must stand with the International Criminal Court, because we stand with the victims.”

Eumans asks the Commission, in detail: the activation of the Blocking Statute, to protect the Court from extraterritorial sanctions; the explicit ban on the application of foreign sanctions in Europe against the Court or its officials; the candidacy of the International Criminal Court for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, as a “strong” political signal in support of its independence.