Useless trivia

In 2000 there were protests in Italy against the use the death penalty in countries all over the world (in Italy it was abolished in 1948). Several demonstrations took place in front of the Colosseum.

Since that time, as a gesture against capital punishment, the local authorities of Rome change the colour of the Colosseum's night time illumination from white to gold whenever a person condemned to the death penalty anywhere in the world gets their sentence commuted or is released.