AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
AI
Index: ASA 17/049/2004
(Public)
News
Service No: 244
1
October 2004
China: School trips to watch death
sentences
In a
bizarre holiday celebration several
hundred schoolchildren were taken to
watch six men being sentenced to death
at a public sentencing rally, according
to a Chinese internet report.
"The Chinese government
regularly 'celebrates' national holidays
by executing large numbers of criminals,"
said Ingrid Massage, Asia director at
Amnesty International. "This year, the
Mid-Autumn Festival falls in the same
week as China's National Day on Friday 1
October and there has been a surge of
executions."
The schoolchildren were part of
an audience of 2,500 people. Held in a
gymnasium in Changsha, capital of
central Hunan province, the sentencing
rally was timed to coincide with the
Mid-Autumn Festival on 27 September. The
six men were then taken to an execution
ground and shot, according to the report
on the 'Tom' web portal.
Pictured wearing their school
uniforms, the children are described as
elementary and middle school students,
between the ages of six and seventeen. They
heard the details of the convicts'
crimes read out in public -- including
murder, assault and kidnapping -- and
then witnessed the criminals being
sentenced to death.
Taking children out of school to
attend sentencing rallies appears to
contravene the Convention on the Rights
of the Child, ratified by China in 1992.
This states that education should be
directed at the "development of respect
for human rights and fundamental
freedoms".
The six men in Hunan are among
at least 100 people executed in recent
days in China.
Both in law and practice,
China's criminal justice system does not
currently offer fair trials under
international legal standards. This is
particularly alarming in criminal cases
where the death penalty is passed.
Confessions may be extorted through
torture, access to lawyers is limited
and the appeal system is fractured and
decentralised. Amnesty International
opposes the death penalty in all
circumstances and is calling on China to
halt all executions immediately with a
view to abolishing the death penalty in
law.
To see the 'Tom' report, go to:
http://news.tom.com/1002/20040928-1366379.html
Public
Document
****************************************
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UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St.,
London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org
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