Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty in China
Fact Sheet
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| Convicted prisoners being rallied in public, 27 June 2003. (© People’s Daily) |
- 84% of Globally Documented Executions Are Carried Out in China
- In the 1990s, China executed 18,194 people (an average of 1,802 per year), and issued 27,599 death sentences.
- In 2001 alone, Amnesty International documented at least 4,015 death sentences issued and 2,468 executions carried out. These estimates are compiled based on published accounts and reports, and are thought to be an underestimation of the actual number of sentences and executions carried out.
- On January 3, 2003, the Chinese government executed 7 prisoners after a public sentencing rally in Sanya City, on Hainan Island in order to prepare for the Chinese New Year.
- On April 11, 2001 an astonishing 89 people were executed in a single day to kick off a national “strike hard” on crime campaign. In the following 3 months alone, 1781 were executed, 50 of whom were condemned at a mass rally in June 2001.
- Provinces in China have begun to use mobile execution vans – converted passenger vans that have been equipped with space for the victim, a medical doctor, the executioner and a courtroom official in the back, where the execution can take place. In the front seat, the vans feature monitors to allow witnessing and recording of the execution. Amnesty International is very concerned about the use of these mobile execution vehicles.
- Chinese courts hand down the death sentence for an ever expanding range of crimes including nonviolent and political crimes, plus a number of vaguely defined crimes that are subject to broad interpretation.
- Arbitrary crimes which ordinarily bring a lesser sentence may bring the death penalty depending on the political climate and whether the government is interested in making an example of someone in order to advance its own political agenda.
