Concerns Grow Over Executions in China

A few months ago, a state-run newspaper reported that someone else had confessed to the rape and murder for which her son had been executed. For years, few had listened as she insisted that Nie Shubin, 20, had been tortured into a false confession, then convicted after a two-hour trial. The only evidence of any note, she says, was the account of a witness who saw someone near the crime scene riding a blue bicycle. Nie owned a blue bicycle.

"If his bicycle were red, or black, he'd be alive today," Zhang said.

Cases such as Nie's have cast a harsh spotlight on China's widespread, and often questionable, use of the death penalty. Now, amid pressure from lawyers, academics, the United Nations and many countries, the government is undertaking a reevaluation.

On Tuesday, government media reported that the Supreme People's Court would regain the authority it lost in 1983 to oversee capital cases. The change in the early 1980s was driven by a desire for speedy justice. According to the China Youth Daily, the nation's highest court is adding three criminal trial courts to handle death penalty review cases in a "truly neutral" fashion.

Legal scholars estimate that this change could reduce executions by 30%. The current system has seen provincial judges order up the death penalty at a fast and furious pace.

Comprehensive death penalty statistics remain a state secret, although local jurisdictions will announce executions when that serves a political purpose. Human rights groups, however, say China executes more people than the rest of the world's governments combined.

Amnesty International found evidence of 3,400 death sentences carried out in 2004 but says the real number may be closer to 10,000 a year. This compares with 59 in the U.S. in 2004. More than 70 countries use the death penalty, but most apply it only in the case of a few extremely violent crimes. China executes people for 68 offenses, many nonviolent, including smuggling, tax evasion, corruption, "endangering national security" and separatism, which includes advocating Tibetan or Taiwanese independence.

The state-run press has called for a "kill fewer, kill carefully" approach, perhaps as early as next year. More broadly, the Communist Party hopes a credible legal system will help channel public frustration through the courts rather than into public demonstrations.