China Secretly Executed Thousands in 2009

[Rage Inc.]

Source: Slate

The U.S. is in the proud company of China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia as the five countries that executed the most people in 2009.

China was way ahead of the rest of the field, according to an Amnesty International report that detailed the global use of capital punishment last year. How far ahead we can't tell, because death penalty records are "a state secret" in China, and experts believe thousands of Chinese executions go unreported every year. It's so bad that AI declined to publish "minimum figures" for China because "estimates based on publicly available information grossly underrepresent the actual number the state killed or sentenced to death."

Amnesty has better numbers for other countries, allowing them to confidently assert that the U.S. can hold its own against authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes. The United States was the only country in the Americas to use the death penalty last year. It executed 52 people, behind Saudi Arabia (69), Iraq (at least 120), and Iran (at least 338). In Iran, 112 of those deaths came in the eight weeks between the presidential election in June and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's inauguration.

But AI is happy to report that "countries that still carry out executions are the exception rather than the rule." Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty last year, and the peaceniks in Europe didn't execute a single person.

Read more: http://slatest.slate.com/id/2249344/entry/7/

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Ain't it funny how those wimpy European countries have murder rates drastically lower than ours?

Also, I'd like to send my condolences to Republicans in Texas. I know you executed as many people as you could, regardless of guilt or innocence: It's gotta hurt like hell to have the Chinese beat ya so bad!

On the other hand, CONGRATULATIONS to the Iraqis for learning the American Way! :patriot: (Cue Lee Greenwood)

[PDJane]

1. Barbaric practice, that..........

It appears that the Regressive Conservatives would like to reinstate the death penalty here, too. I am sincerely hoping that they lose on that one.

[jtuck004]

2. Those monsters. They should be much more civilized and just turn

off their utilties for non-payment so they freeze, or they die in the home they burn down trying to stay warm while by burning newspaper in the stove. Or make health care mandatory without making sure someone has enough income to pay for it but making sure that good profits can still be made by corporations. Teach everyone that only individual effort is important while a small percentage of the people keep most of the wealth while working together.

Those Chinese people could learn a lot from us about civility. But what do you expect from communists?

[bananas]

3. China is off the chart

http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/death-sentences-and-executions-in-2009
More than two-thirds of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. While 58 countries retained the death penalty in 2009, most did not use it. Eighteen countries were known to have carried out executions, killing a total of at least 714 people; however, this figure does not include the thousands of executions that were likely to have taken place in China, which again refused to divulge figures on its use of the death penalty.

[Amaya]

4. This is what is wrong with america

...we are fucking barbarians.
2,424,279 incarcerated - 3,297 sit on death row

I would like to see Obama actually address this disgusting situation.
But he's probably for the death penalty too.
:(

[Nikki Stone1]

5. Wasn't it Thomas Friedman who wanted us to be more like China?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=1

"There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Our one-party democracy is worse. The fact is, on both the energy/climate legislation and health care legislation, only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” Many of them just want President Obama to fail. Such a waste. Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist. But if he’s forced to depend entirely on his own party to pass legislation, he will be whipsawed by its different factions."

Look at the climate/energy bill that came out of the House. Its sponsors had to work twice as hard to produce this breakthrough cap-and-trade legislation. Why? Because with basically no G.O.P. representatives willing to vote for any price on carbon that would stimulate investments in clean energy and energy efficiency, the sponsors had to rely entirely on Democrats — and that meant paying off coal-state and agriculture Democrats with pork. Thank goodness, it is still a bill worth passing. But it could have been much better — and can be in the Senate. Just give me 8 to 10 Republicans ready to impose some price on carbon, and they can be leveraged against Democrats who want to water down the bill.

“China is going to eat our lunch and take our jobs on clean energy — an industry that we largely invented — and they are going to do it with a managed economy we don’t have and don’t want,” said Joe Romm, who writes the blog, climateprogress.org.

[Better Believe It]

6. So AI doesn't have a clue how many Chinese were executed but it was thousands. OK

[MajorChode]

7. There is no such thing as a career criminal in China

They have something similar to a 3 strikes rule even for petty theft. After a few chances, they simply pull you out of your cell and put a bullet in the back of your head.

In Saudi Arabia you can leave your wallet or purse on the floor of a crowded shopping mall, come back after an hour and it will still be there. Petty theft means you lose a hand.

I'm surprised that wingnuts don't extol these policies more. It sounds like something they can really support and hold up as an example of the best way to govern. Perhaps their xenophobia is the overriding factor here.

[conscious evolution]

8. Its not the criminals in china

who are being executed in large numbers.
It is members of Falun Gong and followers of the Dalai Lama who are having invoices sent to their familys for the cost of the bullet.

[MajorChode]

12. They definitely kill criminals in large numbers

How many political prisoners they execute is anyone's guess. They haven't billed families for bullets in decades. This is a rumor that persists to this day, but it's very outdated.

One thing that China doesn't do is sentence anyone to death that's under 18, which is one way that the US is even more barbaric.

[Romulox]

9. Remember when "Free Trade" with China would lead inexorably to Democracy?

Isn't it ironic that rather than bringing democracy to China, it's brought corporatism to America? :silly:

[howard112211]

10. Once again, the completely useless absolute numbers are quoted, rather than the per capita rates.

[MajorChode]

13. Even the per capita rates don't tell the whole story

There's lots of factors that can come into play like incarceration rates, crime rates, and what types of crimes receive capital punishment and what factor mental illness and retardation has in sentencing. However, there's little question that the US, China, and Russia are world leaders when it comes to barbarity.

[Skidmore]

11. Ah, but the form of our Destroyer was chosen at least a decade ago.