Capital punishment in the People's Republic of China
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The People's Republic of China currently uses capital punishment for many crimes, ranging from tax evasion, corruption and racketeering to murder. Execution in China is disproportionately more common than in the few remaining countries that use capital punishment. China has held more executions annually than any other nation; in 2006 it executed as many as ten times more people than the country ranked second. China's use of capital punishment for minor crimes is often cited as one of the many human rights problems within the country. The death penalty does not extend to Hong Kong or Macau under the "One Country, Two Systems" Principle.
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[edit] Procedure
Compared to some developed countries, death sentences are carried out very quickly in China. Usually the time from a trial to execution is less than one year. As of 2005, after a first trial (一审) concludes with a death sentence, the inmate has seven days to appeal to the provincial supreme court, which results in a second trial (二审). If the second trial concludes with a death sentence, it is carried out immediately. After legislative reform in 2007, a death sentence now must be approved by the Supreme People's Court of China in Beijing.
China also has a unique kind of sentence, "death sentence with two years' probation" (死缓) (but it is not universal). This sentence is generally reduced to life imprisonment after two years. It has been argued in various forums in China that the difference between a death sentence and a death sentence with two years' probation is too large, because life imprisonment usually means serving 15 to 20 years.
In some areas of China, there is no specific execution ground. A scout team chooses a place in advance to act as the execution ground. In such case, the execution ground normally will have three perimeters: the innermost 50 m is the responsibility of the execution team; the 200 m radius from the center is the responsibility of the armed police; and the 2 km alert line is the responsibility of the local police. The public is not allowed to view the execution.
The role of the executioner was fulfilled in the past by the People's Armed Police. In recent times, the legal police force (法警) assumed this role.
China currently uses two methods of execution. The most common is execution by firearms, which uses an assault rifle to fire a single shot of a hollow point bullet designed to expand upon impact, resulting in the disintegration of the upper portion of the brain. Lethal injection was introduced in 1997. It differs from its application in the U.S. in that it is carried out in fixed locations as well as in specially modified mobile vans. As lethal injection becomes more common, debate has intensified over the fairness of relying on lethal injection to execute high officials convicted of corruption while ordinary criminals get executed by firearms. It is public opinion in China that lethal injection is an easier way for the condemned to die.
In the past the government collected a "bullet fee" (子弹费) from the relatives of the condemned.[1]
Capital punishment in China can be politically or socially influenced. In 2003, a local court sentenced the leader of a triad organization to a death sentence with two years of probation. However, the public opinion was that the sentence was too light. Under public pressure, the supreme court of China took the case and retried the leader, resulting in a death sentence which was carried out immediately.
The Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau have separate judiciaries and local laws and do not have capital punishment. This has created a barrier to the creation of proper extradition laws between the SARs and the mainland. It is quite a concern to many residents of the SARs that in many crimes with concurrent jurisdiction the central authorities have claimed the right to try, and potentially sentence to die, residents of Hong Kong and Macau.
[edit] Women and capital punishment
In China there are a fairly large number of women executed compared to other nations that impose the death penalty. Many international stories on the death sentence in China focus on the execution of women, as does much of the photographic documentation of the public display of condemned prisoners as well as leaked documentation of executions themselves. Some point out the predominance of men in Chinese society, and claim this should offset the balance in a truly fair judicial system.
[edit] Rates of execution
Six countries (China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the United States) account for 91 percent of the reported world total number of executions. Of 1,591 confirmed executions in 25 countries worldwide, at least 1,010 people were executed in China during 2007.
The sheer size of the Chinese population is such that when a comparison of the percentage of population executed is made the situation in China appears to be disproportionately large. Iran (0.25 per 100,000) executes more prisoners per capita.
The exact numbers of people executed in China is classified as a state secret; occasionally death penalty cases are posted publicly by the judiciary, as in certain high-profile or politically embarrassing cases. One such example of this was in the case of former State Food and Drug Administration director Zheng Xiaoyu's execution was confirmed by both state television and the official Xinhua News Agency[2]. Other media, such as Internet message boards, have become outlets for confirming death penalty cases usually after a sentence has been carried out; such postings are quite distinguishable from others by a big red tick near the bottom.
[edit] Future
At a diplomatic event in Germany, senior Chinese state officials commented that China, in the long run, will eventually abolish the death penalty[3].
In 2004, senior judicial officials issued an instruction to judges urging them to use the death penalty with caution.
As of 2004 and 2005, state controlled media in China has reported that the government took back the final approval authority for capital punishment from the provincial supreme courts to the Supreme People's Court. Such authority had been delegated from the Supreme People's Court to the High People's Courts since February 12, 1980.
[edit] Criticism
Several features of capital punishment in China have drawn international criticism even from proponents of the death penalty in liberal states[citation needed].
- Pressure placed on local and regional bureaucracies under the auspices of the "Strike Hard" campaigns has led to the streamlining of capital cases; cases are investigated, cases and appeals are heard, and sentences carried out at rates much more rapid than in other states with developed judicial systems ostensibly based on liberal principles.
- Capital punishment in China is not applied on a uniform basis. At times, the government will have so-called "strike-hard" (严打) campaigns aiming to warn the public against committing certain crimes. During such times, the courts will adopt a so-called "act fast, act hard" (从快从重) posture and will hand down punishment more severely and quickly.
- Capital punishment is applied flexibly to a wide range of crimes, some of which are punishable by death in no other judicial system in the world. Economic crimes such as tax fraud have appeared routinely among the dockets of those receiving the death sentence, as have relatively small-scale drug offenses. Death is also frequently imposed on repeat offenders whose individual crimes would be considered relatively minor in most judicial systems, such as non-violent theft or causing incidental bodily harm that is not life threatening or debilitating. Capital punishment is also imposed on inchoate offenses, that is, attempted crimes which are not actually fully carried out, including repeat offenses such as attempted theft or attempted fraud. The recidivistic nature of the offenses, not their seriousness per se, is what is adjudicated to merit the capital sentence.
- Capital punishment in China can be imposed on crimes against symbols and treasures of the state, such as theft of cultural relics and the killing of pandas.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ High Tide of Terror, Mar. 05, 1956, Time Magazine
- ^ China Executes Ex-Food and Drug Chief
- ^ Meeting hears calls for death penalty reform. China View. Retrieved on 2008-09-09.
[edit] External links
- Olympic Watch (Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games in a Free and Democratic Country) on death penalty in China
- Executed “according to law”? The death penalty in China
- The Chinese Human Rights Web
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