BlogRun.de

Taken from the english Wikipedia: 

China has the highest number of death penalties in 2005, with 1,770 people executed. Between 1994 and 1999, according to the UN Secretary-General, China, which has the world's largest population of 1.3 billion people, was ranked 7th in terms of the number of executions carried out in comparison to overall population, behind Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan and Jordan.^[6] Amnesty International claims that official figures are much smaller that the real number, stating that in China the statistics are considered State secrets. Amnesty stated that according to various reports, in 2005 3,400 people were executed. In March of that year, a senior member of the National People’s Congress announced that China executes around 10,000 people per year.^[7]

There is concern from NGOs and several foreign governments over the number of crimes punishable by death, 68 in all, including some white collar crimes such as embezzlement and tax fraud. India has a similar population to China (1.1 billion), yet rarely uses the death penalty. Furthermore, the inconsistent and sometimes corrupt nature of the legal system in mainland China bring into question the fair application of capital punishment there.^[8]

In January 2007, China's state media announced that all death penalty cases will be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. Since 1983, China's highest court did not review all cases. This marks a return to China's pre-1983 policy.[3]

[edit] Organ harvesting and extrajudicial execution

Main article: Organ harvesting in China

In recent years, there have been allegations that executed prisoners have had their organs harvested for transplants, which were sold to both Chinese and foreign nationals.^[9][10]

China's deputy health minister has officially admitted, after previous denials, that organs were harvested from executed prisoners and that regulations were needed to "standardise" the practice. An American who flew to Shanghai to have such a transplant performed on his wife, said the prisoners had to give their consent before their organs could be removed.^[11]

However, in July 2006, David Kilgour, a former Canadian Cabinet minister and a human rights lawyer, and David Matas, also a human rights lawyer, released a report about allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Far from getting consent in all cases, the report claimed, China was secretly mass-murdering Falun Gong practitioners, in order to harvest their organs for lucrative sale to wealthy patients - often foreigners. After being killed and having their organs removed, the report alleged, the victim's body would be incinerated to destroy the evidence.^[12]

Stichwort: censorship, China, death penalties