China rethinks use of the death penalty

<China, which carries out more executions each year than the rest of the world put together, is having second thoughts about the death penalty.

The official media have recently been airing conflicting opinions about the morality and effectiveness of capital punishment, some of which surfaced at a Justice Ministry symposium last month in Xiangtan, a mountain resort in Hunan province.

Qiu Xinglong, dean of law at Xiangtan University, put up an abolitionist argument at the symposium, saying the law recognised criminals as human beings and could not deprive them of their right to life.

Professor Qiu said he formed his view after spending time with an 18-year-old on death row. "At seven on the last morning, he was eating with me. An hour later, he was on the execution field," he said. "From that moment on, I have been haunted by this question: why must we cruelly kill a fellow human being?"

The number of executions carried out by China remains a "state secret". The official news agency Xinhua and newspapers instead cite a report by Amnesty International that in 2001 it had recorded more than 4000 death sentences and nearly 2500 executions in China.>

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/China-rethinks-use-of-the-death-penalty/2005/01/28/1106850110932.html?oneclick=true

Murder is all it is.

China will likely eventually abolish the death penalty for "common crimes," but I think they will maintain it for "treason" and "subversion" crimes. A real problem, pointed out in the People's Daily Communist Party newspaper, was that public opinion is largely in favor of death sentences at present, so "spiritual development" must take place to raise people's level of thinking about death penalty.