Chinese Death Wish: 801 Executions in the Final 3 Weeks of April 2001 Alone

-Rick Halperin, BEIJING (AP): May 19, 2001

China calls its anti-crime campaign Strike Hard, and in its name hundreds - 801 in a few weeks by one diplomat's count - are being paraded forth at public rallies and then taken away and executed.Those falling to the executioners' bullets include murderers, drug dealers, and even people like Wu Wei, an insurance salesman who was shot for embezzling the equivalent of $47,000.

Those executed in Xinjiang have included convicted separatists. Xinjiang television showed huge crowds at public sentencing rallies, with the condemned paraded on trucks before their execution.Since 1983, there have been four Strike Hard campaigns in China, which in sheer numbers has long led the world in executions.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups say more than 500 people have been executed since April 11. A Western diplomat counted 801 deaths in the final three weeks of April alone - basing his tally on reports in China's state-run media. He asked not be named. China keeps nationwide execution figures a secret and has not said how many have been killed.The campaign appears to be gaining steam. State media daily report new rounds of executions. In 1996, during China's last Strike Hard campaign, more than 4,400 were shot, said Amnesty, a London-based group that opposes the death penalty. Last year, by contrast, at least 1,000 people were put to death - still more than the rest of the world combined.

On April 20, hundreds watched in a gym in the southwestern city of Chongqing as an official read death sentences to 33 people lined up on the floor. They were among 55 people condemned and shot on the same day, the official Chongqing Daily newspaper said. Experts agree that the March blasts in Shijiazhuang helped spur the recent campaign. The lone man accused of setting the bombs, Jin Ruchao, and two others convicted of selling him explosives were executed by gunshot April 29.Others were condemned for far less. On April 26, two men were executed in the southwestern province of Yunnan for robbing a U.S. diplomat of $50. Wu Wei, in his early 30s, was shot April 12. Arrested in 1998, he used the funds he embezzled to gamble, according to the Intermediate People's Court in Kunming, Yunnan's provincial capital.

China was one of 28 nations that executed people last year as punishment for crime, according to Amnesty International, which says the number of countries executing prisoners has been gradually falling, from 32 in 1991. The United States executed 85 people last year, 80 by lethal injection.

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UPDATE

-5by5: July 18, 2001

China has consistently led the world in the numbers of people it executes yearly, but this year they are reaching new highs, or lows depending upon your viewpoint. not only have they had more executionsso far this year than all the nations of the world combined, but the figure has climbed to an astounding, 6,100 reported death sentences with 4,367 confirmed executions so far this year under it's so-called "strike-hard" campaign. Currently there are no less than 68 crimes that are punishable by death in China.