Advertisement

China still only reporting fraction of executions, Amnesty says

Despite Beijing’s pledge to better scrutinise how capital punishment is used, the national court database contains less than a tenth of the cases reported in media, rights group finds

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
A truck carries criminals and suspects to a stadium for a mass sentencing rally in Yili, Xinjiang in this file photo from May 2014. Photo: Reuters

Amnesty International has called on China to be transparent about the number of people it puts to death, saying less than a tenth of capital punishment cases were registered in the national court database.

Advertisement

In its annual global review of executions released on Monday, the rights group said it found media reports of 305 executions carried out in China last year, but only 26 cases were in the court database.

The group estimated that several thousand people were put to death last year, without detailing how it arrived at that estimate.

“The Chinese government is claiming that it is bringing transparency to the judiciary and judicial verdicts. But this transparency stopped at the death penalty,” said Nicholas ­Bequelin, the group’s director for East Asia.

Advertisement

“[Our report] showed how the government continuously classified all figures related to judicial executions as well as most details about the circumstances and in which how the executions were carried out as state secrets.”

loading
Advertisement