Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
The European Union expressed its deep regret over the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in the state of Alabama yesterday. This came in a statement issued by the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy Department in Brussels. The statement continued, “The European Union strongly opposes the death penalty at all times and in all circumstances. It is a violation of the right to life.” A complete denial of human dignity. The death penalty fails to act as a deterrent to crime, and represents a final punishment that makes miscarriages of justice irreversible. 196 innocent people on death row in the United States have been exonerated so far.
The execution was carried out by forcing the prisoner to breathe pure nitrogen, depriving him of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions, resulting in nitrogen hypoxia - the first time this method of execution had been used in the United States. According to leading experts, this method is considered a particularly cruel and unusual punishment, in addition to the fact that the inmate had already been subjected to a failed execution attempt in November 2022.
The European Union continues to call for the global abolition of the death penalty. In this context, the European Union welcomes the fact that 29 US states have either abolished the death penalty or imposed a moratorium on the implementation of death sentences. However, we are concerned about the high number of executions in the United States last year. 24 people have been executed in five states despite a steady and overall decline in the use of the death penalty in the United States since 2020. We call on states that retain the death penalty to implement a moratorium and move toward abolition, in line with the global trend.