Capital punishment in China
[2][3][4] A survey conducted by The New York Times in 2014 found the death penalty retained widespread support in Chinese society.
[21] The Tang Code (653 CE) listed 233 capital offenses, and the Song dynasty (960–1279) retained these and added sixty more over time.
[21] Historically, poorer and lower-status Chinese were most often subject to capital punishment; however, officials and others of high-rank were put to death as a means of social control in times of war, internal disarray, or strife.
[22] For example, King Wu of the Western Zhou ordered officials who violated royal regulations, failed to carry out their duties, or "promulgated innovations" to be put to death; 39 military officials were executed following a peasant uprising during the Tang dynasty; the six gentlemen of the Hundred Days' Reform, who advocated social reform in the late Qing dynasty were executed.
Examining a criminal by torture began in the Qin dynasty when judges, after a preliminary hearing and investigation, used bambooing and bastinado to force the offender to admit to committing the crime.
In a brief report in May 2008, Xinhua quoted anonymous sources as saying Chinese courts handed down 30 percent fewer death sentences in 2007 compared with 2006.
[39] Article 49 in the Chinese criminal code explicitly forbids the death penalty for offenders who are under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.
Under public pressure, the Supreme People's Court took the case and retried the leader, resulting in a death sentence which was carried out immediately.
[41] Since 1980, the state's security apparatus has initiated various "strike hard" (Chinese: 严打; pinyin: Yándǎ) campaigns against specific types of crime.
[39] Capital punishment in China can be imposed on crimes against national symbols and treasures, such as theft of cultural relics and (before 1997) the killing of giant pandas.
[39] Thirteen crimes were removed from the list of capital offenses in 2011, including smuggling of cultural relics, wildlife products, and precious metals.
[44][45][46] This brought the total number of capital offenses down from 68 to 55,[47] though many of the crimes dropped from the list were rarely if ever punished with death penalty.
[46] The Draft 9th Amendment to the PRC Criminal Law was passed on 29 August 2015, which removed a further nine crimes from the list of capital offenses.
In recent times, the People's Courts’ judicial police officers (Chinese: 法警; pinyin: fǎjǐng) assumed this role.
Since 1949, the most common method has been execution by firing squad, which has been largely superseded by lethal injection, using the same three-drug cocktail pioneered by the United States, introduced in 1996.
[55] The Dui Hua foundation notes that it is impossible to ascertain whether these guidelines are closely followed, as the method of execution is rarely specified in published reports.
The Supreme People's Court distributed the execution kits, developed by the China Academy of Medical Science Pharmaceutical Institute, and the first experiments occurred in 1997.
[60] According to "The Death Penalty in China: Reforms and Its Future", the 13 crimes (19% of the total number of crimes punishable through death) were: "smuggling of cultural relics; smuggling of precious metals; smuggling of precious animals or their products; smuggling of ordinary freight and goods; fraud connected with negotiable instruments; fraud connected with financial instruments; fraud connected with letters of credit; false invoicing for tax purposes; forging and selling value-added tax invoices; larceny; instructing in criminal methods; excavating and robbing ancient cultural sites or ancient tombs, and excavating and robbing fossil hominids and fossil vertebrate animals".
This series of actions is thought of as marking the beginning of China's tenuous start toward completely abolishing the death penalty.
While many critics are skeptical of Amendment VIII bringing long-term change, the reforms represent a gradual transition towards greater state respect and protection of human rights.
[61] Capital punishment has widespread support in China, especially for violent crimes, and no group in government or civil society has vocally advocated for its abolition except some that are based in Europe.
[65] Because of the wide application of capital offenses in Chinese criminal law, substantial use of capital punishment, and the hidden numbers of the execution rate, the Chinese death penalty system has been criticized by many international organizations which make an appeal to ethics and human rights, without always being well informed about the historical and cultural conditions in China.
[63] A foreign reporter stated, "China's enthusiasm for capital punishment has long been a target for international criticism of its human rights record."
The last wave of international death penalty abolition has been influenced by the process of democratization and has inspired constitutions that protect the right to live.
[68] The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong has accused Chinese hospitals of using the organs of executed prisoners for commercial transplantation.
[70] In December 2005, China's deputy health minister Huang Jiefu admitted that the country harvested organs from executed prisoners.
[69] In 2009, Chinese authorities acknowledged that two-thirds of organ transplants in the country could be traced back to executed prisoners and announced a crackdown on the practice.
