Canada Outraged Over Alleged Executions of Citizens in China
Ottawa voiced strong indignation on Wednesday, asserting that four Canadian nationals were executed in China following convictions for drug trafficking.
Reports indicate the executions occurred earlier this year, though Beijing has refrained from explicitly confirming the events.
Secrecy Surrounds China’s Execution Practices
This ambiguity aligns with China’s state policy regarding capital punishment. Human rights organizations estimate that the nation carries out thousands of executions annually, but official figures remain a closely guarded secret.
A Chinese embassy representative stated that Beijing ‘fully guaranteed the rights and interests of the Canadian nationals concerned’.
International Condemnation of China’s Justice System
However, the news ignited global condemnation. Critics denounced China’s system as ‘inhumane’, highlighting numerous reports of alleged state-sanctioned killings in recent years.
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China’s swift execution process remains profoundly disturbing and opaque, characterized by judicial proceedings that often impose the most severe penalties, even for non-violent offenses.
Methods of Execution: From Firing Squads to Mobile Death Vans
Traditionally, executions in China were performed by firing squad. In recent years, lethal injections have been introduced as an alternative.
Mobile Execution Units: Expediting Capital Punishment
A particularly concerning development is the alleged deployment of ‘mobile death vans’. These vehicles are purportedly used to accelerate the pace of executions, representing an industrial-scale approach to capital punishment that evokes unsettling parallels with Nazi Germany.
China is believed to execute more prisoners each year than the rest of the world combined. Pictured: Archive image shows Chinese police presenting a group of convicts for sentencing, many of whom went on to be executed
Chinese police lead a condemned man into a special execution van (file image)
Image allegedly shows the inside of one of the converted police buses used in China
Historical Context and Global Comparison
Historically, capital punishment was often a public spectacle. In 19th-century Britain, hangings and in revolutionary France, guillotine executions, drew large crowds, intended to deter potential criminals through brutal displays.
Today, public executions are largely confined to nations such as Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. In countries like Japan and the United States, executions are conducted privately.
China’s Opaque Approach to Capital Punishment
However, China’s approach remains uniquely shrouded in secrecy. The nation does not disclose statistics on executions. Rights groups caution that thousands are executed annually via firing squads, lethal injections, and allegedly, within mobile ‘death vans’.
Critics voice concerns about the alarming frequency of ‘wrongful’ executions, where individuals are later found innocent. China’s judicial system, known for its pro-prosecution bias, facilitates a streamlined process. Courts in China maintain a conviction rate of 99.9 percent.
Broad Range of Capital Offenses
Furthermore, death sentences are frequently imposed for a wide array of offenses, spanning from drug trafficking and homicide to economic crimes like corruption.
A 2021 report indicated that China’s 1997 Penal Code, still in effect, lists 46 capital crimes, including 24 violent and 22 non-violent offenses.
Criminal law in China is both stringent and obscure, with draconian legislation prescribing the death penalty for numerous crimes.
Concerns Over Summary Executions
Instances of summary executions have also been documented in China. In such cases, individuals accused of crimes are executed immediately upon conviction, often without due process or fair trials.
The combination of a broad spectrum of capital offenses, a high conviction rate, and a vast population of 1.4 billion positions China as the world’s leading executioner, surpassing all other nations combined.
The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty reported that, as of 2022, at least 8,000 people were executed annually in China starting from 2007.
Public Execution Rallies and Evolving Methods
Over the years, footage and images of public ‘execution rallies’ and summary killings have surfaced.
While public rallies were reportedly discontinued in 2010 in favor of lethal injections, the use of firing squads persists.
In one documented case from 2018, Zhao Zewei, who stabbed nine schoolchildren, was executed by firing squad before a crowd of villagers.
Canada’s foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly said she and former prime minister Justin Trudeau had asked for clemency for the dual citizens
An inmate screams before being taken to execution in Ghanghzou in 2001
A vehicle marked ‘Zunyi City Middle-Level Court: Penal Vehicle,’ like the converted death vans
Mobile Death Vans: A Closer Look
China allegedly utilizes mobile death vans to enable roaming execution squads to carry out state-sanctioned killings without transporting prisoners to designated execution sites.
Minghui, a volunteer-run organization reporting on the Falun Gong community, claims these vans have been operational in China since 2004, facilitating the execution of political dissidents.
Minghui alleges, ‘In the eyes of CCP officials, the biggest advantage of the execution vehicle is the convenience of taking organs from criminals for profit: their eyes, kidneys, livers, pancreas, lung and all other useful body parts, are harvested,’ alluding to China’s purported organ harvesting practices.
Externally, these vans resemble standard police vehicles, lacking any markings indicating their true purpose.
Internally, they are equipped as mobile execution chambers.
The rear compartment, devoid of windows, serves as the execution site.
CCTV cameras are installed within the van, enabling officials to record or monitor executions, according to Amnesty International.
A bed extends from the van’s wall, where the condemned individual is restrained.
A technician inserts a syringe into the prisoner’s arm, followed by a police officer administering a lethal injection by pressing a button.
Police parade prisoners during an execution rally at a stadium in Kunming, the capital of China’s southwestern Yunnan province, 26 June 2001
Police officers stand guard behind suspects during a public sentencing rally in Baokang, central China’s Hubei province September 28, 2007
Expansion and Justification of Mobile Execution Vans
Amnesty International reports that Chinese provincial authorities distributed 18 vans in 2003. Some reports suggest their deployment dates back to the 1990s.
The human rights organization asserts their introduction aimed to ‘improve cost-efficiency’ and ‘replace the traditional execution method of firing squads’.
On March 6, 2003, as Yunnan province approved van usage, two farmers, Liu Huafu, 21, and Zhou Chaojie, 25, convicted of drug trafficking, were executed by lethal injection within a mobile execution van.
Starting as a trial in Yunnan, mobile executions gained national traction after endorsement from the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing.
The court urged all provinces to procure vans ‘that can put to death convicted criminals immediately after sentencing’.
Amnesty International raised concerns that this system, touted as more ‘efficient’ and ‘cost-effective,’ could ‘facilitate an even higher rate of execution’.
Organ Harvesting Allegations
Mobile death vans are reportedly linked to China’s organ trade. A 2012 estimate suggests 65 percent of donated organs originated from executed individuals.
Activists claim bodies are swiftly cremated, preventing families from verifying if organs were removed.
Disturbing Historical Parallels
These vans have drawn grim comparisons to larger gas vans used by the Nazis during the Holocaust in World War II.
The concept of a truck equipped with a gas chamber emerged around 1940. Improvised gas vans soon operated in Nazi-occupied territories.
By August 1941, over 100,000 Germans with mental and physical disabilities had been murdered under the Nazi euthanasia program. Sex workers and Romani people were also systematically killed in vast numbers.
In 2012, a spectator appeared to capture an execution by firing on camera (pictured)
Footage showed police officers leading a man out into a clearing near a village, as a crowd of people watched from a nearby overpass, before shooting him in the back of the head
Convicted murderer Naw Kham is seen being taken to his execution in March 2013 in China
China Defends its Judicial Processes
China maintains that due process is afforded to those facing capital punishment.
Amid international outcry over the reported executions of the Canadian citizens, the embassy spokesperson asserted that Beijing ‘fully guaranteed the rights and interests of the Canadian nationals concerned’.
China has also issued firm messages to Canada to refrain from interfering in its internal affairs.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated that Canada should ‘respect the spirit of the rule of law and stop interfering in China’s judicial sovereignty’.
Concerns Remain over Fairness and Efficacy
Despite assurances, given the pro-prosecution nature of the judicial system and the extensive list of capital crimes, the introduction of mobile death vans arguably simplifies state-sponsored killings.
The legitimacy of state-sanctioned executions, whether of citizens or foreign nationals, remains a contentious legal and philosophical issue.
The efficacy of the death penalty as a deterrent is also questionable.
French philosopher Albert Camus, reflecting on 19th-century British hangings, observed that these brutal spectacles failed to deter crime. Public hangings often attracted pickpockets drawn to large crowds.
Camus noted that of 167 condemned inmates at Bristol prison in 1886, 164 had previously witnessed executions.
Risk of Wrongful Executions
A critical concern remains the risk of irreversible injustice. For every eight executions, statistically, one death row inmate has been exonerated – highlighting the potential for countless wrongful deaths without recourse or compensation.
China is believed to execute thousands annually via firing squads and lethal injection. While Beijing urges non-interference, expedited execution methods like mobile death vans exacerbate the inherent problems within its system of state-sanctioned capital punishment.