As a man convicted of killing six police officers, Yang Jia made an unlikely choice for a hero. Yet the jobless 28-year-old from Beijing would often attract hundreds of people to the court building in Shanghai where his cases were heard, some holding signs lauding him as just that: 'Long live the hero with a knife!'
In the space of a few days at the end of October, more than 2,500 people had added their names to one online petition, including economist Mao Yushi and Ai Weiwei, a consultant on the capital's National Stadium, before the letter was promptly taken down. After Yang's execution last Wednesday, one blogger urged people to mourn for three days by abstaining from meat.
Throughout his trial, beginning in August, and his appeal in October, Yang did not seek the public's sympathy. He pleaded guilty to the June 1 attack, in which he started a fire outside a gate at the Zhabei district police bureau, stabbed a security guard and then stabbed nine police officers inside, killing six - a rampage prosecutors said was done in revenge after he was detained briefly last year. Yet his alleged humiliation at the hands of the police, and his effort to seek justice, have resonated with a public weary of security forces who abuse their power and get away with it.
The state party has always relied on the death penalty to deter crime and maintain social and political order.
Yet now, partly because top leaders are uncomfortable with the accusation that the mainland executes too readily, and partly owing to pressure from the international community, the reform of capital punishment was last year made a priority within the party-run judiciary system. Academics have suggested greater independence for the judiciary and a reduction in the number of crimes that carry death sentences.
'Ever since January 2007, when the Supreme Court took back the sole authority in reviewing the death penalty, I have noticed a substantial decrease in the issuing of death sentences, especially cases of immediate execution,' said Chen Weidong, a professor and leading expert on state executions from Renmin University in Beijing. 'Killing fewer and killing with extreme caution is also the guidance from the central government.'