Problems Remain in China’s Death-Penalty System Even After Reforms

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBLE0Ug4Rfnnz6Yqs197-3pi8iISWLeqJuAH5jDdKjETU-j2vNl7wWe1lMmgTVy4XMgi1ae5Ut_-g8RBdsCZfLVSf6ag5yU5m5jy8K_20bArHZiQbTwK1CVRbJoXcYHOG5uVgMkC9crA/s1600/executing+drug+trafickers+in+China.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Chinese death-row inmates" border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBLE0Ug4Rfnnz6Yqs197-3pi8iISWLeqJuAH5jDdKjETU-j2vNl7wWe1lMmgTVy4XMgi1ae5Ut_-g8RBdsCZfLVSf6ag5yU5m5jy8K_20bArHZiQbTwK1CVRbJoXcYHOG5uVgMkC9crA/s400/executing+drug+trafickers+in+China.jpg" title="Chinese death-row inmates" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chinese death-row inmates are marched to a nearby execution ground<br />where they will be put to death by firing squad.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">(Beijing) — Lai Changxing, the kingpin of a multibillion-dollar smuggling ring in the coastal city of Xiamen and once dubbed “China’s most-wanted fugitive” by state media, was given only a life sentence by a Chinese court in 2012, although more than a dozen of his accomplices had been executed by firing squad a decade earlier.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lai's network smuggled products as diverse as cigarettes, cars, oil and textiles. But the 58-year-old was able to literally dodge a bullet after Chinese authorities agreed to drop the death sentence in his case after a 12-year-long extradition battle with Canada.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Critics say Lai’s sentencing highlights the uneven implementation of the death penalty, which is used by government-controlled courts as a means to deter crime — often at the expense of justice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Amid mounting international pressure and rising public discontent at home over its widespread use of the death penalty, China’s top court has taken a series of steps to reform the system of capital punishment in the past decade.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chinese academics estimate the number of death sentences handed down has dropped sharply since 2007, after the Supreme People’s Court took over the system of reviewing these verdicts that was earlier left in the hands of provincial-level courts. Yet legal reformists say more changes are needed to avoid possible wrongful convictions. They point out that the review happens behind closed doors, often without the presence of defense lawyers, and so are calling for open court-style hearings instead of allowing a small group of Supreme People’s Court judges to have the final say.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The defense lawyer’s voice must be heard during these reviews because they can make or break a life,” said Zhang Qingsong, a founding partner at Beijing’s Shangquan Law Office.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Under the current system, a person who is sentenced to death by a local court can appeal the verdict to a high court at the provincial or regional level. A death sentence upheld by a high court is then referred to the Supreme People’s Court for review.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This review process works as follows: A judge from a lower court wanting to give out a death sentence must first file an application with a three-judge panel at the Supreme People’s Court, and the panel then produces a review report either approving the verdict or disapproving it. This is then referred to a deputy president of the Supreme People’s Court for approval. Next it is submitted to an internal trial committee for the final decision, explained a Supreme People’s Court official who asked not to be named.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The public does not have access to information about the workings of this internal trial committee, which is composed of an unknown number of Supreme Court judges.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once a death sentence is upheld, the president of the Supreme Court will issue an execution order that has to be carried out by a lower court within seven days.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But despite its lack of transparency, the current review process is a far cry from the system that existed before 2007.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">'Strike Hard'</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress, had decentralized the review system in the 1980s, allowing provincial and regional high courts to have a final say on cases involving capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The move was part of the “strike hard” anti-crime campaign launched nationwide amid a noticeable uptick in serious felonies such as murder, rape, armed robberies and arson attacks in the earlier years of the country’s reform and opening-up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During this period, judges — many of them former police officers or demobilized soldiers without legal training — were ordered by the Communist Party to be severe. They were often told to expedite trials or to give harsh punishments, well above those prescribed in the penal code, for the sake of “maintaining social order.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The decision to decentralize reviews had eroded the credibility of the review system and the public no longer trusted it as the last resort to address potential miscarriages of justice, according to legal experts, including Li Hongjiang, a Supreme Court judge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During this period, “the review system was made meaningless and toothless because a provincial or regional high court is unlikely to change a death sentence it had already upheld in a subsequent review,” Li wrote in 2007, in an article published by the People’s Judicature, a journal affiliated to the Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The string of death sentences overturned and pronounced as wrongful convictions in recent years were all reviewed and given the green light by provincial or regional courts in the 1980s and ’90s.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmXXPzXUGrbie2ljiPK4S3QD1liVYSwNhewhrmHe750Z43rTSvVTURHdFbaOrJa4RlYmyTQxwyadTdLWPDVaCb_VLPSPP-uTZkIMDCs-4nSeiy4cGFY2BQvcQ3dHrOyOItu15e_WtBtgU/s1600/Nie+Shubin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nie Shubin" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmXXPzXUGrbie2ljiPK4S3QD1liVYSwNhewhrmHe750Z43rTSvVTURHdFbaOrJa4RlYmyTQxwyadTdLWPDVaCb_VLPSPP-uTZkIMDCs-4nSeiy4cGFY2BQvcQ3dHrOyOItu15e_WtBtgU/s400/Nie+Shubin.jpg" title="Nie Shubin" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Exonerated Nie Shubin, "hastily executed" during the "strike hard" campaign</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The latest example is <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/search/label/Nie%20Shubin" target="_blank">the exoneration of Nie Shubin</a>, 21, from Hebei province, who was executed after being convicted of the rape and murder of a young woman in 1995.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nie was arrested, given a death sentence and hastily executed, largely based on evidence extracted via a forced confession when the “strike hard” campaign was in full force, court documents show.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But after an alleged serial rapist, arrested over a similar crime in the central province of Henan a decade later, confessed to killing the victim in Nie’s case, the previous verdict was put into doubt.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It took Nie’s family another 10 years to petition various judicial authorities and courts before a retrial was granted by the Supreme Court in June, and Nie’s name was cleared in early December 2016.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Hebei Provincial People’s High Court, which upheld Nie’s death sentence during an appeal on April 25, 1995, was also in charge of the final review on the verdict. It gave the go-ahead to the execution in a review completed just two days after the appeal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The number on death row in China is a closely guarded state secret. But the number of death sentences given out has dropped sharply after the Supreme Court took charge of all reviews in 2007, down from tens of thousands to several thousand, according to estimates by Chinese academics.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The number of executions each year has also declined from five-digit figures to a several thousand as a result.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Chinese government had previously argued that the number on death row was small given China’s large population. But fewer than 40 people are sentenced to death every year in India, a country with a comparable population, according to Zhao Bingzhi, president of the College for Criminal Law Science at Beijing Normal University.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2016, 30 people were sentenced to death in the United States as of November, one-tenth of the 315 capital punishment verdicts in 1996, according to Washington-based rights group Death Penalty Information Center. There were only 20 executions in the U.S. in 2016.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">China's widespread use of capital punishment remains a stumbling block when the country negotiates bilateral extradition treaties with many Western nations such as the U.S and Canada, where most Chinese fugitives are in hiding. This has hampered the anti-corruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping in 2012.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only a handful of developed nations, including Spain and France, are among the approximately 40 countries that have signed extradition treaties with China, government data showed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Going Easy on the Noose</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In addition to the decision to centralize the review process in 2007 by making the Supreme Court in Beijing the sole body to green light death sentences, the court also removed 22 crimes from the list of 68 capital offenses, including many white-collar financial crimes, in 2011 and 2014.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a document the court released in August 2007, lower courts were also told to “exercise caution” when giving death sentences to people who have killed a spouse over a marital dispute or in confrontations with neighbors, if they have shown remorse and adequately compensated the other party.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This stealthy reform process has cut down the number of death sentences by half and even two-thirds in some regions, according to professor Chen Guangzhong at China University for Political Science and Law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDOwEFCDym47e6kBZW1IF5_W27LjCSXEG57Nm23SZCEvxh3HYnYboBP2WIe0w9Cyeh7gtd3jbI2JABoxyrbshVuydim-ao2Z1_0ujSuireItiLvDokpSct4h1OwbEYXwqkcr0oRaiUDES/s1600/chine_ex%25C3%25A9cution.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Execution in China" border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDOwEFCDym47e6kBZW1IF5_W27LjCSXEG57Nm23SZCEvxh3HYnYboBP2WIe0w9Cyeh7gtd3jbI2JABoxyrbshVuydim-ao2Z1_0ujSuireItiLvDokpSct4h1OwbEYXwqkcr0oRaiUDES/s400/chine_ex%25C3%25A9cution.jpg" title="Execution in China" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Liver transplants in China  primarily relied on organs harvested<br />from executed inmates." Execution by firing squad in China.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">“We are now more cautious when imposing the death sentences as the Supreme Court has significantly tightened the review process,” said a president of an intermediate court in a western region who asked not to be named.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Why should we bother if our applications for a death penalty won’t pass the reviews by the top court?”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over 95% of the death sentences imposed since 2007 have been limited to those who committed serious crimes such as murder, drug trafficking and robberies that result in deaths, according to Zhao from Beijing Normal University, who also serves a director of criminal law research unit under the government-backed China Law Society.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">China has also gradually changed the method of execution in most cases from firing squad to lethal injection. In 2015, the country dropped the controversial practice of harvesting organs from executed criminals for use in transplant operations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But given the lack of official data on people on death row, the number of livers harvested served as an indicator of the number of executions in the country for several years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The number of liver transplants, which primarily relied on organs harvested from executed inmates, dropped by one-third from 2006 to 1,822 in 2007 when the Supreme Court began to take charge of death sentence reviews, according to the China Liver Transplant Registry, an online liver transplant database backed by the Health Commission.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite the progress made over the last decade, the death penalty review system is still plagued by a lack of transparency, according to critics.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A search of China Judgment Online, a database affiliated with the Supreme Court, by Zhang Peng, a postgraduate student at the China University of Political Science and Law, found 320 cases between Jan.1, 2014, to Aug. 31, 2016, where review documents showed the Supreme Court had upheld the death penalty. But only 28 of the documents, or less than 9% of cases, said that a defense lawyer was involved in the final review.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some academics said that it might be impossible to add another layer of court trials to replace the review system, but the Supreme Court can turn these reviews into open hearings, which allows for greater public scrutiny.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-01-03/101032821.html" target="_blank">Caixin</a>, Shan Yuxiao, Wang Yiyin and Li Rongde, January 3, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Problems Remain in China’s Death-Penalty System Even After Reforms

Chinese death-row inmates are marched to a nearby execution ground where they will be put to death by firing squad. (Beijing) — Lai Changxin...

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How censorship aids China’s execution machine

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihas13R7-iIANQqb209okYppXyjRqSCXazFmhqbbKhI3qfC5f9-Pcgwi_h4ZbMXA3dkunWjNvYx1oJAgCzWPtmomv442lOnQtb1GmBDlr4MhtfPK18ZG_GysU1b0PaQ3eCT1R4nOkOokuM/s1600/execution+china.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A Chinese police officer lights a prisoner's last cigarette, moments before his execution." border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihas13R7-iIANQqb209okYppXyjRqSCXazFmhqbbKhI3qfC5f9-Pcgwi_h4ZbMXA3dkunWjNvYx1oJAgCzWPtmomv442lOnQtb1GmBDlr4MhtfPK18ZG_GysU1b0PaQ3eCT1R4nOkOokuM/s400/execution+china.jpg" title="A Chinese police officer lights a prisoner's last cigarette, moments before his execution." width="258" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Chinese police officer lights a prisoner's last<br />cigarette, moments before his execution.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The executions of Nie Shubin and Jia Jinglong occurred more than 20 years apart, yet the Chinese authorities have used the plight of both men to send starkly different messages on the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/search/label/Nie%20Shubin" target="_blank">Nie Shubin, who was executed in 1995 for rape and murder</a>, received a <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/2016/12/nie-shubin-china-clears-man-21-years.html" target="_blank">rare posthumous exoneration</a> earlier this month. Officials made much of how this wrongful execution had been corrected and that lessons had been learnt. State media highlighted how the verdict was overturned based on a presumption of innocence, a principle that China’s judicial system has only just started to recognize.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2005, a domestic media outlet revealed that another man, Wang Shujin, confessed to the murder and rape Nie had supposedly committed. The news sent shock waves throughout China, and has created immense public interest and media coverage ever since. It still took more than a decade of persistent campaigning by Nie’s family, lawyers, journalists, and academics to finally clear his name.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This may seem like an advance for justice, but the authorities did not look kindly on another campaign this past month <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/2016/11/outcry-as-china-executes-symbol-of.html" target="_blank">to spare the life of Jia Jinglong</a>. A frantic last-ditch effort on Chinese social media eventually came to nothing. Jia, who killed a local village official, was executed on 15 November.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not only were the authorities intent on ending Jia’s life, they were intent on ending any debate about his plight that –in the view of many- would have warranted some leniency. The same type of activism that brought about a reversal in the verdict for Nie Shubin was not tolerated this time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the day Jia Jinglong was executed, the government’s propaganda machine went into overdrive, with state-media describing the campaign to save his life as “attacking judicial authority.” Social media posts were heavily censored and state-run press published threatening articles to intimidate Jia’s supporters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn4Ku_fJ-PFcMx3OI76YsTrDyQvdoddIti3oEB0WPKUDv-1S3v3Nw_xtsMvRAgKNjCJf60T9SAes2LepLXbS-7VMp4Di204dA5EotL3ujI7j7WIHKFEJ7EMYpDyu1nyDX6bsUayEt6s90/s1600/Jia+Jinglong+CHINA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Jia Jinglong" border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn4Ku_fJ-PFcMx3OI76YsTrDyQvdoddIti3oEB0WPKUDv-1S3v3Nw_xtsMvRAgKNjCJf60T9SAes2LepLXbS-7VMp4Di204dA5EotL3ujI7j7WIHKFEJ7EMYpDyu1nyDX6bsUayEt6s90/s400/Jia+Jinglong+CHINA.jpg" title="Jia Jinglong" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jia Jinglong</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Jia, a farmer in China’s northern Hebei province, killed a local village chief, He Jianhua, on 19 February 2015 with a modified nail gun.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The village chief had ordered the demolition of Jia’s three-story home, which he had just meticulously decorated to prepare for his upcoming marriage. Following the murder, Jia reportedly attempted to turn himself in. According to supporters, the courts should have considered these potential mitigating factors when deciding whether to execute him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Jia’s supporters, China’s default death penalty policy first set out by authorities in 2006 – “killing fewer, killing cautiously” – seemed to hold out a glimmer of hope that the Supreme People’s Court might spare his life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But state censors made sure that those living in mainland China, were not able to read many of the online articles presenting the legal case as to why Jia’s life should be spared.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Twelve of China’s most prominent legal scholars wrote a passionate open letter asking the country’s Supreme People’s Court to grant Jia a reprieve. But their open petition was censored – as were many other posts about Jia Jinglong that were shared on WeChat – China’s main social media platform.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This censorship was accompanied by an ominous editorial in the People’s Daily – the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party – signalling that the online debate had gone too far and that some people could be punished. It said that the scope of freedom of expression extended to people talking about cases in private or over meals, but not on the internet, where they could influence public opinion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The editorial slammed those who spoke out while only “half-understanding” the case, and it warned of consequences for those who harmed the credibility of the legal system or harmed judicial authority by transmitting so-called “untruthful information.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nie Shubin’s case showed that the government is taking some positive moves by redressing emblematic cases of wrongful convictions, but the authorities still control the narrative.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7_pyLAj2j3TjT15bH_AC0rJJyg88bfETVTBPVUtQYexhskh6nBNrt28wBCe-BXSlV2DtSeewYxZd26QiatCni_ZFj_FaAnhzEwyFj5AGd3n2wnGqqky4fgNrputJ8br0JLoX05GYzq88/s1600/Nie-Shubin_CHINA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nie Shubin" border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7_pyLAj2j3TjT15bH_AC0rJJyg88bfETVTBPVUtQYexhskh6nBNrt28wBCe-BXSlV2DtSeewYxZd26QiatCni_ZFj_FaAnhzEwyFj5AGd3n2wnGqqky4fgNrputJ8br0JLoX05GYzq88/s400/Nie-Shubin_CHINA.jpg" title="Nie Shubin" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nie Shubin</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">China remained the world’s top executioner last year. The true extent of the use of the death penalty in the country is unknown as the authorities hide data on death sentences and executions claiming it to be a state secret, manipulate public opinion on specific cases like the Jia Jinglong case, and thereby stymie rigorous debate and empirical analysis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Such censorship is one of the most ironic and tragic aspects of China’s death penalty system. The government demands that people “comprehensively understand” the details of a death penalty case before commenting, and yet the government’s own laws and policies fuel the ignorance it criticizes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is this government secrecy, and not the valiant campaigns that attempt to save people like Jia Jinglong from execution, that cause the real harm to the credibility of China’s legal system.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.atimes.com/censorship-aids-chinas-execution-machine/" target="_blank">Asia Times</a>, William Nee, December 15, 2016. 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How censorship aids China’s execution machine

A Chinese police officer lights a prisoner's last cigarette, moments before his execution. The executions of Nie Shubin and Jia Jinglong...

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