Telegraph.co.uk
Tuesday 21 October 2014
China executed '2,400' people in 2013
Dui Hua Foundation says China executed 2,400 people last year, and falling total over past decade will likely end in 2014 after crackdown in Xinjiang, a restive region in China’s northwest
The Chinese government regards the number of prisoners executed a state secret Photo: Gavin Hellier/Alamy
China
is thought to have executed 2,400 people last year, roughly three times
more than the rest of the world's total, according to a US-based
pressure group.
The
Dui Hua Foundation said the number of people executed in China, which
accounts for one-fifth of the world's population, has fallen annually
over the past decade or so, down from 12,000 in 2002.
But
the organisation predicts the number of people executed this year will
halt the downward trend, as a result of the use of capital punishment in
anti-terrorism campaigns in Xinjiang, a restive region in China’s
northwest, and a nationwide anti-corruption crackdown.
The total number of executions for the rest of the world was 778 people in 2013, according to Amnesty International.
The
Chinese government regards the number of prisoners executed as a state
secret and has not publicly noted the decline, though officials have
occasionally hinted at the trend. In 2012 a deputy health minister cited
the fall in executions as contributing to a shortage of transplant
organs. Dui Hua bases its estimate on state media reports and
intelligence from sources.
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“[China]
has executed far fewer people since the power of final review of death
sentences was returned to the Supreme People’s Court in 2007,” Dui Hua
said in a statement.
John
Kamm, executive director, Dui Hua Foundation, told the Telegraph the
decline was "the single most positive development in the field of human
rights in China in decades".
"Over
the past decade 50, 60, 70,000 people have been spared the
executioner’s bullet. In terms of human rights that’s pretty
significant," he said.
He
added that it was extremely unlikely China would abolish the death
penalty. "I don’t see that happening frankly in the near future," he
said.
In
2013, 39 per cent of death penalty cases reviewed by the Supreme
People’s Court were sent back to higher courts for more evidence,
according to Dui Hua. In one landmark case earlier this year Li Yan, a
survivor of domestic violence sentenced to death for killing her
husband, had her verdict overturned.
Since 1983 the Communist Party has launched regular “strike hard” anti-crime campaigns.
A
current “anti-terrorism” campaign has seen an upsurge in the number of
those condemned to die. Last week a court sentenced 12 people to death
in connection with an attack on government buildings in Xinjiang in July
in which nearly 100 people died.
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