The worst execution and the death penalty in china
In many years there are several times more reported executions in China than the rest of the world combined.
Even then according to Amnesty International: "Only a fraction of death sentences and executions carried out in China are publicly reported." The annual toll is not released and is treated as a state secret.
These days many executions are carried out with a lethal injection as opposed to gunshots. Executions generally take place in specialized chambers or vans, away from public view.
In 2009, the city of Beijing began using lethal injections in the execution of condemned prisoners instead of shooting them.
In January 2008, the Chinese government announced it would expand the use of lethal execution and phase out executions by gunshot.
Severe punishments have traditionally been regarded as a warning, summed by the old Chinese saying "killing a chicken to scare the monkeys." During the Cultural Revolution executions were often performed in public, and Chinese citizens were often forced to watch as "a form of solidarity with the people against the people's enemies."
On August 30, 1983, 30 convicted criminals were executed in a sports stadium before a cheering crowd of 60,000 people. In the 1970s some executions were broadcast on prime time television. Even today there are mass sentencing rallies and public executions.
There have been cases of innocent people being executed. Defendants who face the death penalty are often denied their rights. In one case involved a migrant worker who killed four people the ruling on his appeal was done by the same judge who made the initial ruling.
A suspended death sentence is usually commuted to life imprisonment after two years if the person shows good behavior.
This can later be reduced to 20 years or less with good behavior. In 2007 prisoners that received these “death penalties with reprieves” outnumbered prisoners that were executed.
Studies seem to indicate that the threat of capital punishment does little to deter crime. The official position in China is that someday China will abolish the death penalty but that "conditions aren't right" to do so now.
the world combined. San Francisco-based human-rights group Dui Hua Foundation estimates that 4,000 prisoners were executed in 2011.
Amnesty International no longer reports execution data from China, but believes the figure is "in the thousands." By comparison, there were 43 executions in the U.S. in 2011, according to Washington nonprofit organization Death Penalty Information Center.
According to Amnesty International of the 2,400 execution performed in 2008, 1,700 were in China.
Dui Hua estimates that 5,000 executions were carried in China in 2009, down from 7,000 in 2007 and 10,000 a year in the 1990s.
As many as 6,000 people were put to death in 2010. By comparison, according to Amnesty, the country with the next-highest recorded rate of executions in 2010 was Iran, with 252, followed by North Korea with 60, Yemen with 53 and the United States with 46.
Death penalty numbers are derived from press reports. Many human rights believe the real number of executions is much higher.
Information on executions is a carefully guarded state secret. Dui Hua’s Joshua Rosenzweig told AFP, “There are a number of problems and uncertainties in the way the death penalty process is carried out.
One of the major problems is that it is a very untransparent system.” In March 2010, Amnesty International slammed the Chinese government for not revealing the true number of people executed each year.
John Kamm, founder of the Dui Hua Foundation wrote Washington Post: “Ten years ago, China was executing more than 10,000 prisoners a year.
The human rights group I direct estimates the annual rate to be less than 5,000 now, a reduction due in part to President Hu Jintao's effort to develop a "harmonious society" When Hu took office as Communist Party chairman in 2002, the country was executing as many as 12,000 convicted criminals a year.
The annual number of executions could be down to roughly 2,000 by the time Hu leaves office at the end of 2012.
Opponents of the death penalty will argue, passionately and correctly, that that number is still a human rights violation of the most serious kind.
But the sharp drop in executions is a positive step toward the government's goal of ensuring that only "the most vile and serious crimes" are punishable by death — and its stated goal of eventually abolishing the death penalty in China. [Source: John Kamm, Washington Post, August 16, 2010]
According to Amnesty International there were 470 executions in China in 2007, the most of any country in the world but way down from previous years.
Many see the drop as temporary and a result of new rules on judicial reviews and teh fact that China wants to look good with the Olympics coming up.
China has cut back on executions and execution are no longer carried out as swiftly as they were before since China’s highest court was given authority to review death penalty cases in early 2007.
According to one human rights group the number of executions in China has dropped 40 percent since Beijing was awarded the Olympics in 2001.
Amnesty International estimated there were at least 1,770 executions in 2005, 80 percent of the world’s total that year. Many believe the true figure is much higher, perhaps around 8,000 or even 10,000.
The Chinese don’t release any statistics on executions. Amnesty International comes up with its number from publicized cases. An internal document quoted in a book about the Chinese leadership reported about 15,000 executions a year between 1998 and 2001.
In 2003, according to Amnesty International, at least 5,000 people were executed, or 90 percent of all the world’s executions that year.
In 2002, there were 1,060 documented executions in China. In 2001, a total of 2,468 of the 3,048 documented executions worldwide were in China, 139 were in Iran, 79 were in Saudi Arabia and 66 were in the United States.
These four countries accounted for 90 percent of all executions, with China accounting for 80 percent.
During one three-month period in 2001, in the midst of an aggressive "Strike Hard" anti-crime campaign, 1,781 people were executed.
Amnesty International described the campaign as "nothing short of an execution frenzy" and said, "More people were executed in China in three months than in the rest of the world for the last three years.”
In 1996, a year in another "Strike Hard" ant-crime campaign was aggressively carried out, there were 4,367 (a dozen a day) confirmed executions.
More than 1,000 people were executed in the first two months alone and 222 people were executed in a massive one-day crackdown on drug trafficking. On World Anti-Drugs Day on June 26, 769 of the 1,725 people sentenced on drugs charges were given the death penalty.
In 1997, 2,700 people executed; 2,050 were executed in 1994, 1,411 were executed in 1993 and 1,079 were executed in 1992.
Between 1983 and 1986, the early years of the Deng reforms, some 10,000 people were executed.
In 1995, according to Amnesty International the were 2,190 executions in China, compared to 192 in Saudi Arabia, 95 in Nigeria, 56 in the United States, 50 in Singapore, 47 in Iran, 41 in Yemen, 28 in Russia, 19 in South Korea, 16 in Taiwan and 12 in Jordan.
The majority of executions are for murder, robbery, intentional injury and drug trafficking.
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