'Tool of control to crush dissent': Amnesty warns of global 'resurgence' in use of death penalty

Oliver Farry is pleased to welcome Chiara Sangiorgio, Amnesty International's Death penalty specialist. In Amnesty International’s latest global report on the death penalty, 2025 emerges as a grim landmark year: at least 2,707 executions were recorded across 17 countries, the highest figure documented in recent years. Yet the significance of the report lies not only in the scale of executions, but in the political logic Amnesty identifies behind them. Ms. Sangiorgio argues that the contemporary resurgence of capital punishment is “rooted in fear,” increasingly deployed “as a tool of control and to crush dissent.”