Death penalty opposition onrise in China

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

Death penalty opposition onrise in China
Monday, June 27, 2011
BY KEITH B. RICHBURG
WASHINGTON POST NEWS SERVICE

BEIJING — A 21-year-old music student named Yao Jiaxin was executed this month for a particularly grievous crime: After accidentally hitting a female bicyclist with his car, Yao saw she was still alive, so he stopped, got out and stabbed her eight times to make sure she was dead and could not identify him.

In a country with the world's highest number of executions, the fact that Yao was sentenced to death was not uncommon. At least on the Internet, his crime was widely denounced, with citizens demanding Yao's death.

What was unusual was the intense public soul-searching the case also unleashed. Many legal professionals and others openly questioned whether justice was served by executing a young man who voluntarily turned himself in and confessed, and whose family offered to pay compensation. His crime touched a nerve here — a young man of privilege who killed a poor woman on a bicycle — but many blamed an online mob mentality for forcing a supposedly dispassionate court into imposing a death sentence.

The result was a public broaching of a long-taboo subject here: whether China executes too many people too hastily.



Read more: http://www.northjersey.com/news/124579979_Death_penalty_opposition_onrise_in_China.html

[gtar100]

1. Wow! They really picked a tough case to consider that validity of the death penalty.

I wonder why the petty theft convictions that warranted a close range shot to the back of the head didn't. I seriously hope they work this out well because, yes, China executes too many people in the name of their grand social experiment.

[keopeli]

2. a couple possible (plausible) reasons...

1. He was rich. His family is rich. Rich people can do many things, including alter public opinion.

2. The reason he killed the girl after accidentally injuring her was specifically because he feared that, had he been identified or gone to the police, he would have been summarily tried and executed. In a country like China, lesser crimes can incur the death penalty.

The actions of the young man and family after the fact could indicate that remorse overcame fear of the death penalty once the young man spoke to his family about what had happened.

These are just thoughts. I've done no research. But, in a society that is afraid of their government, I believe they are both plausible.

peace

[David__77]

3. The death penalty opposition is centered in the Communist Party.

Specifically, many Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and other think tank types want to curb it radically. The people generally seem to approve the "strike hard" anti-crime campaigns, just like in the USA. The execution of private and public sector economic criminals and drug peddlers is especially welcomed.

China always went back and forth between executing few and executing many since the modern state was founded. If the elites really want "advanced socialist spiritual civilization," then they better ditch the death penalty and be serious about the old line of "reforming" people's very souls. Corrections CAN work.