Capital Punishment
China executes more people each year than the rest of the world combined. According to the United Nations Secretary-General, between 1994 and 1999 China was ranked seventh in executions per capita, behind Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan, and Jordan. Amnesty International claims that real figures are much higher than official ones, stating that in China the statistics are considered State secrets.
Figures from 2006 and 2007 are reported to have been 1,010 and 470 executions, respectively. In January 2007, China's state media announced that all death penalty cases will be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. Since 1983, China's highest court did not review all cases. This marks a return to China's pre-1983 policy. In light of these changes, figures from 2007 display a substantial reduction in executions with only 470 reported executions compared with figures from previous years. Amnesty International analysts argue that this drop is only temporary since the figure includes only confirmed executions and are likely to be much higher. As of 2008, China is still the country with the highest number of executions. 1,718 people have been executed in 2008 out of 2,390 worldwide.
A total of 68 crimes are punishable by death; capital offenses include non-violent, white-collar crimes such as embezzlement and tax fraud. Execution methods include lethal injections and shooting. The People's Armed Police carries out the executions, usually at 10 am.
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In China
Famous quotes containing the words capital and/or punishment:
“Had I made capital on my prettiness, I should have closed the doors of public employment to women for many a year, by the very means which now makes them weak, underpaid competitors in the great workshop of the world.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)