Justice must not kill. This idea is part of the European legal consensus built around human rights. In the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, no one has been executed since 1997, when the last execution took place in Ukraine. Abolition is today a condition for membership. The exception on the continent is Belarus, outside the Council of Europe, which maintains capital punishment. But this legal consensus coexists with a certain social erosion. According to the 2025 Barcelona Social Values Survey, 35.7% of Barcelona residents believe that the death penalty can be justified always or in some circumstances; among young people aged 15 to 24, the percentage reaches 47%. The trend is not only local. In several countries of the European Union, support for capital punishment is around 50% or higher. In the United Kingdom, in recent months, far-right groups have proposed reinstating it, also appealing to opinion polls. All of this is part of a broader context in which the European populist right advocates for increasingly harsh penal policies.

Christa Pike, the woman who survived an execution in Tennessee last week, is conscious and able to speak, according to reports from her lawyers this Tuesday.

2024 was the year in which the most death sentences were carried out in the world since 2015, when there were at least 1,634. In total, according to data published this Wednesday by Amnesty International, 1,518 were recorded last year, which represents an increase of 32% compared to 2023 (1,153 executions).