The People's Republic of China currently uses capital punishment for a variety of crimes, ranging from tax evasion, corruption and racketeering to murder. The death penalty does not extend to Hong Kong nor Macau under the "One Country, Two Systems" Principle. Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ... This article contrasts tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax resistance and tax mitigation. ... Organized crime is crime carried out systematically by formal criminal organizations. ...

Procedure

Compared to some developed countries, death sentences are carried out very quickly in China. Usually the time from trial to execution is less than one year and sometimes only months. As of 2005, after a first trial (一審) concludes with a death sentence, the inmate has seven days to appeal to the provincial supreme court, which results in a second trial (二審). If the second trial concludes with a death sentence, it is carried out immediately. After legislative reform in 2007, a death sentence now must be approved by the Supreme People's Court of China in Beijing. The Supreme Peoples Court (最高人民法院; pinyin: Zuìgāo Rénmín FÇŽyuàn) is the highest court in the judicial system of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

China also has a unique kind of sentence, "death sentence with two years' probation" (死緩) (but it is not universal). This sentence is generally reduced to life imprisonment after two years. It has been argued in various forums in China that the difference between a death sentence and a death sentence with two years' probation is too large, because life imprisonment usually means serving 15 to 20 years. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime, nominally for the entire remaining life of the prisoner, but in fact for a period which varies between jurisdictions: many countries have a maximum possible period of time (usually 50 years) a prisoner may be incarcerated, or require the... Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime, nominally for the entire remaining life of the prisoner, but in fact for a period which varies between jurisdictions: many countries have a maximum possible period of time (usually 50 years) a prisoner may be incarcerated, or require the...

In some areas of China, there is no specific execution ground. A scout team chooses a place in advance to act as the execution ground. In such case, the execution ground normally will have three perimeters: the innermost 50 m is the responsibility of the execution team; the 200 m radius from the center is the responsibility of the armed police; and the 2 km alert line is the responsibility of the local police. The public is not allowed to view the execution.

The role of the executioner was fulfilled in the past by the People's Armed Police. In recent times, the legal police force (法警) assumed this role. The Peoples Armed Police Force (Abbreviation: PAP; Simplified Chinese: 人民武装警察部队; pinyin: Renmin wuzhuang jingcha budui) is a paramilitary police force primarily responsible for law enforcement within the Peoples Republic of China. ...

China currently uses two methods of execution. The most common is execution by firearms, which uses an assault rifle to fire a single shot of a hollow point bullet designed to expand upon impact, resulting in the disintegration of the upper portion of the brain. Lethal injection was introduced in 1997. It differs from its application in the U.S. in that it is carried out in fixed locations as well as in specially modified mobile vans built by Iveco. As lethal injection becomes more common, debate has intensified over the fairness of relying on lethal injection to execute high officials convicted of corruption while ordinary criminals get executed by firearms. It is public opinion in China that lethal injection is an easier way for the condemned to die. Execution by firearms is different than that of execution by firing squad used in the United States. ... The AK-47 is the worlds most common assault rifle. ... .357 Magnum rounds. ... This article is about the execution and euthanasia method. ... Iveco is a European truck, bus, and diesel engine manufacturer, based in Turin, Italy. ...

In the past the government collected a "bullet fee (子弹费)" from the relatives of the condemned.

Capital punishment in China can be politically or socially influenced. In 2003, a local court sentenced the leader of a triad organization to a death sentence with two years of probation. However, the public opinion was that the sentence was too light. Under public pressure, the supreme court of China took the case and retried the leader, resulting in a death sentence which was carried out immediately. Triad (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Pinyin: ; literally Triad Society) or (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Pinyin: ; literally Black Society, a general term for criminal organizations) is a term that describes many branches of Chinese underground society and/or organizations based in Hong Kong and Macau and also operating in Taiwan, mainland...

The Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau have separate judiciaries and local laws and do not have capital punishment. This has created a barrier to the creation of proper extradition laws between the SARs and the mainland. It is quite a concern to many residents of the SARs that in many crimes with concurrent jurisdiction the central authorities have claimed the right to try, and potentially sentence to die, residents of Hong Kong and Macau. A Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the Peoples Republic of China is an administrative division of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... Extradition is the official process by which one nation or state requests and obtains from another nation or state the surrender of a suspected or convicted criminal. ... In law, jurisdiction (from the Latin ius, iuris meaning law and dicere meaning to speak) is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area...

Notable facts

In China there are a fairly large number of women executed compared to other nations that impose the death penalty. Many international stories on the death sentence in China focus on the execution of women, as does much of the photographic documentation of the public display of condemned prisoners as well as leaked documentation of executions themselves. Some commentators have noted the irony of targeting this aspect of capital punishment as a principal form of abuse of judicial power in China, when the execution of large numbers of women appears due to the principle of treating men and women equally under the law.

China currently executes more people each year than the rest of the world put together. Six countries (China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the U.S.A.) account for 91 percent of the reported world total number of executions. Of 1,591 confirmed executions in 25 countries worldwide, at least 1,010 people were executed in China during 2006. Amnesty International declares that the true figures were higher; they estimate that China executed between 7,500 and 8,000 people in 2006.^[1] Although the exact numbers of people executed in China is classified as a state secret, many death penalty cases were posted publicly by the judiciary on message boards after the sentence was carried out; such postings were quite distinguishable from others by a big red tick near the bottom. For other uses, see United States (disambiguation) and US (disambiguation). ... Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is a pressure group that promotes human rights. ...

Dr. Thomas Diflo, a transplant surgeon at New York University Medical Center, has claimed that organs from executed criminals^[2] have been used for transplantation. Some Chinese doctors advertise outside China to encourage kidney, liver and cornea-transplant patients facing long wait-lists in Japan, U.S.A. and elsewhere.^[3] Thomas Diflo, M.D., F.A.C.S. is a transplant surgeon and Assistant Professor of Surgery (Kidney, Liver and Pancreatic Transplantation, General and Hepatobiliary Surgery)[1] at New York University Medical Center. ... An organ transplant is the moving of a whole or partial organ from one body to another (or from a donor site on the patients own body), for the purpose of replacing the recipients damaged or failing organ with a working one from the donor site. ... The New York University School of Medicine was founded in 1841, ten years after the New York Universitys founding, as the University Medical College. ...

Future

At a diplomatic event in Germany, senior Chinese state officials commented that China, in the long run, will eventually abolish the death penalty. Abolition is the act of formally destroying something through legal means, either by making it illegal, or simply no longer allowing it to exist in any form. ...

In 2004, senior judicial officials issued an instruction to judges urging them to use the death penalty with caution.

As of 2004 and 2005, state controlled media in China has reported that the government took back the final approval authority for capital punishment from the provincial supreme courts to the Supreme People's Court. Such authority had been delegated from the Supreme People's Court to the High People's Courts since February 12, 1980. The Supreme Peoples Court (最高人民法院; pinyin: Zuìgāo Rénmín Fǎyuàn) is the highest court in the judicial system of the Peoples Republic of China. ... February 12 is the 43rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ...

Criticism

Several features of capital punishment in China have drawn international criticism even from proponents of the death penalty in liberal states^{[citation needed]}.

• Pressure placed on local and regional bureaucracies under the auspices of the "Strike Hard" campaigns has led to the streamlining of capital cases; cases are investigated, cases and appeals are heard, and sentences carried out at rates much more rapid than in other states with developed judicial systems ostensibly based on liberal principles.
• Capital punishment in China is not applied on a uniform basis. At times, the government will have so-called "strike-hard" (严打) campaigns aiming to warn the public against committing certain crimes. During such times, the courts will adopt a so-called "act fast, act hard" (从快从重) posture and will hand down punishment more severely and quickly.
• Capital punishment is applied flexibly to a wide range of crimes, some of which are punishable by death in no other judicial system in the world. Economic crimes such as tax fraud have appeared routinely among the dockets of those receiving the death sentence, as have relatively small-scale drug offenses. Death is also frequently imposed on repeat offenders whose individual crimes would be considered relatively minor in most judicial systems, such as non-violent theft or causing incidental bodily harm that is not life threatening or debilitating. Capital punishment is also imposed on inchoate crimes, that is, attempted crimes which are not actually fully carried out, including repeat offenses such as attempted theft or attempted fraud. The recidivistic nature of the offenses, not their seriousness per se, is what is adjudicated to merit the capital sentence.
• Capital punishment in China can be imposed on crimes against symbols and treasures of the state, such as theft of cultural relics and the killing of pandas.

Panda Bear redirects here. ...

See also

• Capital punishment in Taiwan

Capital punishment is a legal form of punishment in the Republic of China (Taiwan) so far. ...

References

1. ^ Amnesty International, Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty.
2. ^ Village Voice article: China's Execution, Inc.
3. ^ BEK-Transplant, Tianjin Hospital, China

External links

• Olympic Watch (Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games in a Free and Democratic Country) on death penalty in China
• Executed “according to law”? The death penalty in China
• The Chinese Human Rights Web
• Asia Death Penalty blog monitors the use of the death penalty in Asia, including China