07 April 2021 :

Two Uighur ex-government officials in China's Xinjiang have been handed death sentences for carrying out "separatist activities", a court said, as Beijing comes under increasing fire for its actions towards minority groups in the region.
Shirzat Bawudun, a former head of the Xinjiang department of justice has been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on the charge of "splitting the country", according to a statement released on 7 April 2021 on the Xinjiang goverment website.
Bawudun had conspired with a terrorist organisation, taken bribes, and carried out separatist activities, Wang Langtao, vice president of the Xinjiang Higher People's Court, said at a press conference.
Bawudun was found guilty of colluding with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) -- listed as a "terrorist" group by the United Nations after meeting a key member of the group in 2003, according to state news agency Xinhua.
The US removed the group from its list of terror groups last November, saying there was "no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist."
Bawudun also illegally proved "information to foreign forces" as well as carrying out "illegal religious activities at his daughter's wedding", Xinhua said. 
The court statement said Sattar Sawut -- former director of the Xinjiang education department -- was also sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve after being found guilty of crimes of separatism and taking bribes.
Sawut was found guilty of incorporating ethnic separatism, violence, terrorism, and religious extremism content into textbooks in the Uighur language, officials said.
The court said the textbooks had influenced several people to participate in attacks in the capital Urumqi including riots that resulted in at least 200 deaths in 2009. 
Others became "key members of a separatist group" headed by former college teacher Ilham Tohti -- a Uyghur economist jailed for life on separatism charges in 2014.
Rights groups believe at least one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in camps across Xinjiang.

31 October 2021 :

A Hong Kong man who suffered from hallucinations and other mental health problems has been executed in mainland China where he was sentenced to death in 2017 for drug trafficking. The execution came hours after his parents visited him for the first time since he was detained five years ago.
Fifty-year-old Wu Chi-man, who pleaded guilty to dealing 15 kilograms of methamphetamine in Shenzhen in March 2016, received a lethal injection in the early hours of 29 October 2021, a volunteer in Hong Kong who helped on his case told HKFP.
Wu’s 80-year-old father and 78-year-old mother talked to their son in prison over a glass barrier hours before the execution. They had not seen Wu for years until the mainland authorities informed them weeks ago about a chance to visit the detained Hongkonger, and they knew it could be the last time to meet him.
“They said that Wu looked healthy and emotionally stable, at the outset at least,” said Hannah, a volunteer at Voice for Prisoners who has been assisting Wu’s family since September last year.
“He was grateful towards us for helping with his case, despite not changing his sentence,” she added.
Wu’s family had appealed to both Hong Kong and Chinese authorities to spare the 50-year-old, saying he only committed the crime because of poverty while he was “troubled by his long-term mental issues.”
Wu was known to the city’s psychiatric services since 2000, and was diagnosed with polysubstance abuse, hallucinations and adjustment disorder, among other mental health problems. But his medical history was not mentioned in his initial trial in 2017, or at the subsequent appeal which upheld the death penalty.
Wu was a “gentle” person and “a good son,” his mother surnamed Chan told HKFP in a phone call last week when she was undergoing Covid-19 quarantine in a Shenzhen hotel. He deserved a “way out” and a chance to “correct himself,” Chan pleaded, adding that a death sentence was too severe for a man who had admitted guilt and had no criminal record in China.
Speaking to HKFP under a pseudonym for fear of reprisals, Hannah said Wu’s parents would stay in Shenzhen until 8 November as they await his cremation and collect paperwork from the authorities. They are not allowed to take home Wu’s personal belongings, including a watch, a necklace and some money, because a 2020 court documented dictated that his possessions must be confiscated.
Hannah added that Chan, who is diabetic, had to get a refill for her prescription despite having brought bottles of pills she needed when they crossed the border in early October.
The Hong Kong Joint Committee on the Abolition of the Death Penalty submitted a petition to China’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong earlier this month, asking the mainland authorities to stop the execution and grant Wu a new trial. They also called on China’s top leader Xi Jinping to pardon the Hongkonger.
Franco Mella, a member of the committee, told HKFP on 28 October that the Beijing agency had replied that the matter was outside the ambit of its work.
“From the content of the letter, the demands are not within the scope of work of our office. [We] suggest the organisation to handle the matter through legal means in the mainland,” the liaison office said in a written reply dated 27 October.

01 June 2021 :

A Chinese teacher at an elementary school has been sentenced to death in August 2020 for raping several students from 2001 to 2020, the Supreme People's Prosecutor's Office of China said on 31 May 2021 at a press conference.
Chinese authorities said the man, identified only by his surname Yang, raped and molested young girls at Baisha primary school in Luxi County, Hunan Province.
Nine students were raped, China's highest prosecution authority said.
The crimes were carried out behind closed doors in offices and classrooms of the school, authorities said.
According to China's Procuratorate Daily, Baisha primary school did not hold Yang and an accomplice with the surname Mi accountable despite growing allegations.
In 2017, parents issued a complaint to the principal and vice principal, but the school did not follow up with an investigation. Yang and Mi continued to terrorize students after 2017, state media said.
Local police in Hunan did not begin investigations until May 2020 after two victims reported the alleged crimes to police.
The Prosecutors' Office said the sentencing occurred in August of last year. Yang was sentenced to death and Mi received a 17-year prison sentence, after authorities concluded Mi joined Yang in the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl, according to the South China Morning Post on 1st June.
Authorities in China did not confirm on 1st June whether Yang's execution already had taken place.

31 January 2021 :

The former head of a Chinese state-owned asset management company was executed on 29 January 2021 on charges of taking bribes in an unusually severe penalty for a recent corruption case.
Lai Xiaomin of China Huarong Asset Management Co., was among thousands of officials snared in a long-running anti-graft campaign led by President Xi Jinping. Others including China’s former insurance regulator have been sentenced to prison.
Lai, 58, was put to death by a court in Tianjin, east of Beijing, the government announced.
The Second Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin ruled in January that death was justified because Lai took “especially enormous” bribes to make investments, offer construction contracts, help with promotions and provide other favors.
Lai asked for or collected 1.8 billion yuan ($260 million) over a decade, the court said. It said one bribe exceeded 600 million yuan ($93 million). He was also convicted of embezzling more than 25 million yuan ($4 million) and starting a second family while still married to his first wife.
Lai “endangered national financial security and financial stability,” said a commentary on the state TV website.
The death penalty “was his own responsibility, and he deserved it,” the commentary said.
Lai was placed under investigation by the ruling Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog in 2018 and expelled from the party later the same year.
Lai also was accused of squandering public money, illegally organizing banquets, engaging in sexual dealings with multiple women and taking bribes, the anti-corruption agency said in 2018.
Investigators seized hundreds of millions of yuan (tens of millions of dollars) in cash from Lai’s properties, the Chinese business news magazine Caixin reported in 2018.

05 January 2021 :

The former chairman of China’s Huarong Asset Management Co was sentenced to death, a court in the northern city of Tianjin said on 5 January 2021, in one of the country’s highest profile corruption cases.
Lai Xiaomin was convicted of receiving or seeking bribes totalling 1.788 billion yuan ($276.72 million) from 2008 to 2018, when he was also a senior banking regulator, according to the Secondary Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin.
He was also convicted on a charge of bigamy.
Lai was expelled from the ruling Communist Party in 2018.
It was not possible to reach him or his lawyer for comment.
Huarong, one of China’s four big state asset management firms, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Lai Xiaomin was lawless and extremely greedy,” the court statement said.
The court noted that most of the activity in question took place after the 18th Party Congress in late 2012, referring to an event that kicked-off of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign by soon-to-be President Xi Jinping that became a hallmark of his first term.
“The social harm was huge and the crimes were extremely serious and he should be severely punished according to law,” the court said.

29 December 2021 :

A couple from western China’s Chongqing municipality were both sentenced to death on 28 December 2021 for conspiring to kill the man’s two young children from a previous marriage so they could start a new family.
The father, Zhang Bo, started a romantic relationship with Ye Chengchen when he was still married. After divorcing his wife, Zhang threw his one-year-old son and two-year-old daughter out of the window of his high-rise flat in November last year, killing them both.
Ye was also convicted of murder and sentenced to death because she pressured Zhang to commit the crime. She did not want her future husband to have children with another woman, said the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People’s Court in its verdict on 28 December.
The evidence was presented during a hearing July, and it is unclear if they would appeal the decision.
Zhang and his ex-wife, Chen Meilin, both lived in Chongqing and raised one child respectively after they divorced in February 2020.
During this time, Zhang and Ye, who began dating in 2019, planned to murder his kids.
Ye had asked Zhang to kill the kids on multiple occasions because neither she nor her parents would agree to let her marry a man who had children from another woman.
“When the kids are gone, I will marry you … Why don’t you kill both since you will be killing anyway?” said Ye, according to Zhang’s former wife Chen, who revealed the conversation in legal documents.
Zhang organised a gathering of the siblings on 2 November 2020, at his home on the 14th floor of a residential building. He threw both of his children out of a window while alone with them.
He was seen by neighbours racing down the building’s stairs without shoes and crying beside the children, one of whom died at the scene. The other died in hospital.
The case was initially thought to be an accident as the man claimed he was asleep while the children fell out of the window, but he later confessed to police that he and Ye had plotted the murder.
“When Zhang Bo hesitated, Ye forced him to commit the crime, and finally he followed through with the murder,” read the verdict.
The court said that what they did has “violated both the law and moral limits” and caused “a terrible social influence”.

14 October 2021 :

A man was sentenced to death by a court in southwest China on 14 October 2021 for dousing his ex-wife with gasoline and setting her on fire after she refused to get back with him.
Tang Lu was convicted of the gruesome murder that shocked the nation by the Intermediate People's Court in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province.
The victim, Amuchu, or better known as her online name Lamu, an influencer on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, was brutally set alight while she was doing a livestreaming on Douyin at her father's home on September 14, 2020, the court said.
Lamu suffered severe wounds from the burn and died half a month later, despite treatment.
Tang and Lamu got married in 2009. During their marriage, Tang developed a long history of domestic violence. After they divorced on June 28, 2020, Tang repeatedly sought to remarry Lamu but was rejected.
The court said the method of crime was extremely cruel and its consequences very grave, leading to harsh punishment for Tang.

21 September 2021 :

Yan Haojie, the man who killed his pregnant wife after she refused to help him repay his gambling debts, has been sentenced to death, the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court announced on 30 July 2021.
Investigations revealed that Yan, who was saddled with a gambling debt of over 1 million yuan, demanded money from his wife and threatened her with a knife on the morning of 20 March 2020. 
He then stabbed her to death after she refused. He later set fire to the house to cover up his crime.
The court found Yan guilty of intentional homicide and arson. 
Despite confessing to his crimes, he has been given capital punishment and deprived of political rights for life.
According to the investigation findings, Yan failed to obtain his degree while studying abroad and has been addicted to gambling since 2018. He also scouted his wife's home in the Pudong New Area before making the attack.

16 September 2021 :

A woman was sentenced to death on 9 September 2021 by a court in east China for a series of murders, robbery and kidnappings which caused seven deaths and shocked the nation.
Lao Rongzhi was found guilty of conspiring with her ex-boyfriend to commit four counts of robbery, kidnapping and murder in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, and Hefei City, Anhui Province, between 1996 and 1999, the Intermediate People's Court in Nanchang announced.
Lao said she would appeal the death sentence.
Lao's ex-boyfriend Fa Ziying was caught for the killings in 1999 and executed that year after receiving the death penalty.
Lao targeted victims while providing services at entertainment venues and had clear divisions of work with Fa while conducting the atrocities, the court said.
Lao fled Hefei in 1999 and used false identities while on the run for two decades. She was arrested by police in Xiamen, Fujian Province, on 28 November 2019.
Lao had been working short-term jobs in bars and small shops under fake identities in various cities, making it difficult for police to track her down. But new technology helped in their hunt.
Officers in the southeastern city of Xiamen used big data technology to find Lao and confirm her identity with a DNA test.

17 July 2021 :

A man in the northeast China city of Harbin was sentenced to death on 15 July 2021 for killing a pandemic control volunteer who stopped him from leaving a residential complex under lockdown, a court said.
Chen Long was also ordered to pay a 656,508-yuan (US$101,500) compensation to the victim's family, ruled the Intermediate People's Court in Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang Province.
Chen was stopped by a volunteer surnamed Zhang when he tried to leave his residential area on 3 February. He then took out a knife from a bag he carried and stabbed Zhang several times in his chest, abdomen and arms, causing him to bleed to death, the court said.
The killer was caught at his home by police later that day.

20 May 2021 :

A woman was sentenced to death on 19 May 2021 after a court in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, identified her as having murdered a judge at the beginning of this year.
The Changsha Intermediate People's Court publicly announced the sentence to the defendant, Xiang Hui, and ordered her to pay about 38,000 yuan ($5,914) to judge Zhou Chunmei's estate as compensation.
The court said that Xiang, who comes from the same town as Zhou, decided to kill the Hunan High People's Court judge after she refused to bend the law in a labor-related lawsuit Xiang had filed with the court.
To get close to her target, Xiang took a job on 4 January as a cleaner in the housing community in which Zhou lived, the court said.
At around 7 am on 12 January Xiang attacked the 45-year-old mother of two in the community's underground parking lot, stabbing her several times in the head and neck with a knife and causing her to bleed to death.
"Xiang's behavior constitutes intentional homicide, and her crime deserves harsher punishment because the method of killing was extremely cruel," the court said in the ruling.
No information about whether Xiang will appeal to a higher court have been released so far.
According to the Hunan High People's Court, Zhou was diligent, dedicated and firmly upheld the law during her 17 years of service.

10 May 2021 :

Nanchong Intermediate People’s Court recently sentenced to death a man for intentional homicide, with a two-year reprieve depriving him of political rights for life, China News reported on 7 May 2021.
Feng on 14 March 2019 knocked down and stabbed his former boss on the streets of Langzhong, Sichuan, due to a wage dispute over 100 yuan.　　
Because of his lack of serious work, Feng was cut by his boss after working in a grain and oil store for a month and was fired the following month. He believed that the boss had paid him 100 yuan less than his salary, which caused the conflict.
After judicial appraisal, the appraised person Feng had a mental disorder to be classified, but he was judged as capable of criminal responsibility for his violation of the law.
Feng was born in 1986 and has a junior high school education.

03 March 2021 :

A man who electrocuted, then bludgeoned his mother to death to claim an insurance payout so he could buy a flat was executed on 24 February 2021 in China.
Fu Bailian, 33, was put to death having been found guilty in July 2019 of killing his mother at her home in Zigong, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, in March 2018.
He was sentenced to death by the Zigong City Intermediate People’s Court. The court heard that Fu killed his 56-year-old mother after having harboured resentment over her decision to live in Zigong, almost 1,500km away from his home in Guangzhou, southern China, making her unavailable to look after his child.
Legal documents tendered to the court showed that Fu lacked the funds to buy a flat that he wanted and had taken out a personal accident insurance policy on his mother, worth 400,000 yuan (US$62,000), in November 2017, months before he killed her.
China’s top court, the Supreme People’s Court, ordered the execution after he lost an appeal against the sentence in June 2020.
The court in Zigong heard that, in March 2018, Fu took a flight from Guangzhou to Chengdu, then a taxi to his mother’s home in Zigong. He coaxed her into having a massage with an electronic device, then attached exposed wires to both her hands and electrocuted her. Still conscious, she was beaten repeatedly by Fu on the head and face with a wooden stool until she passed out, the court heard.
Fu put her body on the kitchen floor and placed a hairdryer plugged into a burned power board under it, before fleeing. When Fu’s older brother called to notify him of their mother’s death later that day, Fu pretended he was still in Guangzhou.
The court heard that police investigating her death suspected foul play after finding the victim barefoot and her slippers placed neatly to one side. They also found blood on curtains and scratch marks on a wall.
Fu paid for another flight dated after his mother’s death so he could fake a later arrival at his mother’s home. But surveillance camera footage placed Fu in Zigong before that flight, according to a Red Star News report in 2019.
“Fu Bailian spent a long time planning the murder, searched online many times for murder methods, tools and insurance claims. He cleaned and staged the crime scene, destroyed and hid evidence, showing he had made sound plans with a resolute mind and deep malice,” the Sichuan High People’s Court ruled in an appeal hearing last year.
“His crime is extremely serious and harmful to society. It cannot be tolerated by the rule of nature, the law of the country and the feelings of people,” the court added.
Fu met his family before the execution, a court statement said. 

06 February 2021 :

High-profile serial killer Wang Shujin, 53, was executed in Hebei province on 2 February 2021 after his death sentence for rape and intentional killing was approved by the Supreme People's Court.
Wang, a native of Hebei, was sentenced to death for multiple counts of intentional homicide by the Handan Intermediate People's Court in the province on 24 November. He was also sentenced to 15 years in prison for rape. The court combined the sentences in the death penalty.
Wang appealed, but the Hebei High People's Court rejected his appeal, upholding his convictions and the death sentence. The sentence was then submitted to the Supreme People's Court for review, as all death penalties made by lower courts have to get final approval from the top court.
After the review, the top court found Wang guilty of four rapes, three killings and an attempted killing from 1993 to 1995.
"Wang had been previously imprisoned for rape, but he raped again and did the killings without repentance and correction after his release, meaning his criminal intent as well as personal and social dangerousness were extremely despicable and serious," it said. "Although he turned himself in, he couldn't be leniently penalized."
It acknowledged the ruling made and upheld by the Hebei courts, noting the facts of the case were clear, the evidence to prove Wang's convictions was sufficient, the death sentence appropriate and the trial procedures legitimate.
The Handan court carried out the execution after receiving the review result from the top court. Wang's close relatives refused to meet him, even though the court told them they had the right to do so before the execution, the top court said.

04 February 2021 :

A Beijing court on 2 February 2021 handed a death sentence with a two-year reprieve to a man who injured four people with a knife at a hospital in the city.
Cui Zhenguo was convicted of intentional homicide in the first instance, according to the Third Intermediate People's Court of Beijing Municipality.
At Chaoyang Hospital on 20 January 2020, Cui, then 36, attacked Tao Yong, a doctor at the hospital, with a kitchen knife as he was not satisfied with the effect of Tao's treatment on his eyes, said the court.
Tao was seriously injured, and three others who were attempting to stop Cui sustained minor injuries.
Cui awaited police at the scene and the court considered him to have surrendered himself.
It is not known yet if he will file an appeal. 

03 February 2021 :

The Qinzhou Intermediate People's Court in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on 2 February 2021 carried out the execution of Yang Guangyi, who raped a 10-year-old girl.
Yang, a native of Guangxi, used cruel and violent means to rape the girl, who was on her way home after picking passion fruit to sell in Qinzhou, in 2018. The girl died as a result.
He was sentenced to death for rape by the intermediate court in 2019, but the sentence was changed to a suspended death sentence last year after he appealed, as the Guangxi High People's Court said Yang turned himself in after the rape and thus deserved to be granted some leniency.
The victim's mother appealed and in November the top court ordered the high court to set up a new panel to retry the case.
After the retrial, the high court withdrew its previous ruling, saying Yang was not eligible for lenient punishment because he raped the girl by extremely cruel means, and his action had brought great negative effects to society.
The top court acknowledged the new verdict, saying those who seriously harm children must be harshly punished, including being given the death sentence, under Chinese law.
It also said the approval of Yang's death penalty showed the country's strong determination to deter people from sexually assaulting juveniles.
Before the execution, the intermediate court told Yang that he had the right to apply for a meeting with his relatives, but Yang refused, the top court added.

21 January 2021 :

A man in China was sentenced to death on 18 January 2021 for killing the judge who presided over his divorce.
Wu Dere was ordered to be executed for stabbing to death judge Hao Jian, 56, with a knife he brought to court in Heilongjiang Province, the state-run outlet China Daily reported.
The father-of-two had allegedly been angry about the outcome of his divorce proceedings.
Hao had ruled that Wu could keep his 160,000-yuan ($24,643) apartment, but would have to 80,000 yuan ($12,321) to his estranged wife, China Daily reported.
He would also have to give her the 200,000 yuan ($30,804) that they earned from pig breeding.
Wu appealed the decision to a higher court and then asked Hao for the property certificate, but the judge told him that it would be returned when the appeal was over.
After drinking on 13 November, Wu took a knife with him to the court to find Hao, the report said.
He then stabbed Hao in the chest before others intervened and restrained him, the outlet reported.
Despite attempts to save him, the judge bled to death, according to a report.
Wu was convicted of intentional homicide and ordered to pay 650,000 yuan ($100,115) to the judge’s family, the outlet reported.
“He showed contempt for the judicial authority, took another’s life and seriously damaged public security, so we decided to give him capital punishment and ordered him to pay compensation,” the court said.

12 January 2021 :

Zeng Chunliang, a man who killed three people within six days last year, was sentenced to death by the Yichun Intermediate People's Court in Jiangxi province on 11 January 2021.
Zeng, 44, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for robbery and two years for burglary, with a fine of 20,000 yuan ($3,100), the court said.
Zeng said he accepted the ruling and would not appeal.
A native of Jiangxi, Zeng had been imprisoned for theft twice before the latest verdict. He was freed from a prison in Zhejiang province and returned to Le'an county in Jiangxi in May, according to the intermediate court.
After his release, Zeng was compelled to steal again because he had no income, the court said.
On the evening of 21 July, Zeng rode a scooter and carried some tools, including a flashlight, gloves and screwdrivers, to a three-story house in Houfang village in the county. He broke into a room but didn't find anything valuable. Then he fell asleep in the room.
The next morning, the resident of the house, surnamed Xiong, discovered Zeng.
Zeng threw her to the ground, injuring her. Her son, surnamed Kang, tried to come to her aid, but Zeng injured him using the screwdrivers. Zeng fled and Kang called the police.
Zeng decided to seek revenge against the family after learning that Kang reported him.
On the night of 7 August, Zeng came to Xiong's house again with a knife and found a hammer in the storeroom. He then hid in the kitchen.
When Xiong entered the kitchen the next morning, Zeng hit her head with the hammer and stabbed her with the knife. He then went to the second floor, hitting her husband, also surnamed Kang, and their grandson with the hammer.
Zeng's actions led to the death of the couple and severely injured the boy. He also stole some watches, silver bracelets and other items in the house before fleeing the scene.
While at large, Zeng also killed a local poverty relief official in the village on 13 August because the village committee would not meet his demands for a house to live in and for land to start a stone quarry business.
Zeng was captured by the county's police on 16 August after a search lasting more than a week in the countryside, including mountainous areas. He was charged with intentional homicide, robbery and burglary in October.
The intermediate court publicly heard the case on 21 December and determined that the worth of the goods stolen by Zeng exceeded 12,000 yuan. During the trial, Zeng said he regretted the killings and was prepared to pay for them with his life.

03 October 2021 :

A young man who murdered his mother in 2015, a high-profile case as he was a student at the prestigious Peking University, was sentenced to death by a court in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province, on 26 August 2021.
Wu Xieyu was found guilty of intentional homicide, fraud, and buying and selling of fake ID cards by the court, according to the court's website.
He was also deprived of political rights for life and fined 103,000 yuan ($15,892).
Wu, who was "pessimistic and weary of the world," wanted to commit suicide after his father died of illness, and he believed that his mother Xie Tianqin's life was meaningless, so he decided to kill her. He purchased tools online in the first half of 2015, according to the court.
At about 5 pm on 10 July 2015, when Xie returned home to change shoes, Wu killed her by hitting her head and face with a dumbbell bar. Then he placed 75 layers of coverings on Xie, such as bed sheets, plastic film, and deodorant bags.
Wu lied to relatives and friends, saying that Xie was going to accompany him to study abroad. Wu defrauded relatives and friends of 1.44 million yuan as money for living expenses, tuition fees, and financial proof.
In order to avoid investigation, he purchased more than 10 ID cards to conceal his identity.
On his sentencing, the court said that "Wu's murder of his mother seriously violated the family relationship and trampled on the normal emotions of humans. The case has extremely bad impact on the society."
Wu was arrested on 21 April at Jiangbei International Airport in Chongqing Municipality.

15 August 2021 :

A Chinese court has upheld the death sentence for Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian convicted of drug smuggling in China in 2018.
The Liaoning High People's Court said in a statement Tuesday that they rejected his appeal because "the facts identified in the first trial were clear, the evidence was true and sufficient, the conviction was accurate, the sentence was appropriate." According to the court that handed down the death sentence in 2019, Schellenberg was dispatched to Dalian by drug traffickers in November 2014 to orchestrate the smuggling of more than 222 kilograms of methamphetamine from the Chinese port city to Australia. Schellenberg and an accomplice bought tools and tires in an attempt to repackage the drugs before shipping them out in containers, according to the prosecution. The Canadian was said to have inspected the cargo, assessed the workload and decided on a shipping date. After his accomplice turned himself into the police, Schellenberg fled Dalian and was arrested in southern China on December 1, 2014, when he tried to fly to Thailand, the court said.
Schellenberg, who is one of several Canadians currently detained in China, has persistently maintained his innocence. He was first tried in March 2016 and was convicted in November 2018. Upon receiving a sentence of 15 years in prison, he appealed the verdict. A high court ordered a retrial in late December 2018 when the prosecution said they had uncovered new evidence to prove Schellenberg's principal role in the case. He received the death sentence just a month later.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized the ruling, saying in 2019 that the situation was "of extreme concern" and accusing China of "arbitrarily" applying the death sentence.
Schellenberg's family have said they are in close contact with Canadian diplomats in China.
China severely punishes those caught smuggling or trafficking drugs, including foreigners. Anyone found with more than 50 grams of a controlled substance can face the death penalty.
Schellenberg's case came amid worsening diplomatic tensions between the two countries, after Canadian police detained top Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in December 2018 -- just before the high court ordered his retrial.
Meng, who is also the daughter of the Chinese tech company's founder, was released on bail pending an extradition hearing to the United States on charges of violating sanctions against Iran.
Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada's ambassador to China from 2012 to 2016, said he believes China is making an example out of Schellenberg.
In addition to Schellenberg's death sentence, Chinese courts are due to issue verdicts in two long running espionage cases involving detained Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Beijing has repeatedly rejected allegations of "hostage diplomacy," denying any link between cases involving Canadians in China and Meng's fate.
Beijing in January 2020 proposed a "hostage swap" with Meng to Canada but Prime Minister Trudeau rejected it with harsh words: "The government does not trade in legal matters".
Marc Garneau, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement that Canada "strongly condemns" the court's decision and Schellenberg's "arbitrary" sentence. "We have repeatedly expressed to China our firm opposition to this cruel and inhumane punishment and will continue to engage with Chinese officials at the highest levels to grant clemency to Mr. Schellenberg," Garneau said.
The only possibility for Schellenberg is that the sentence will be reviewed by the Supreme People’s Court, the highest Chinese court, but the suspicion is that everything will depend on how "Lady Huawei" is treated.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/10/china/china-robert-schellenberg-lost-appeal-intl-hnk/index.html

25 January 2021 :

An article published online by Cambridge University Press is the first to report the nationwide public support rate for the death penalty in China. Using a national representative sample with 31,664 respondents, it shows that 68 per cent of China's citizens are for the death penalty, while 31 per cent are opposed to it.
These numbers suggest that support for capital punishment in China, although strong, is much weaker than in some other East Asian jurisdictions and less than first assumed by commentators. However, contrary to previous notions that public support for the death penalty derives from uninformed popular prejudice, it is the elites in China – i.e. those who receive higher education – who are more in favour of the death penalty.
Further empirical analyses suggest that this is not because of political ideology or fear of crime. Rather, the reason is likely that the elites know fewer, and sympathize less with, criminal offenders, who generally come from underprivileged groups.
These findings challenge a range of prevailing perceptions of public attitudes to the death penalty in China, especially the culture explanation for the Chinese public's punitiveness, and have important policy implications.

14 January 2021 :

The Uighur community in Turkey could be in jeopardy after a recent agreement was reached between Turkey and China, Voice Of America (VOA) wrote on 7 January 2021.
An estimated 50,000 Uighurs are believed to reside in Turkey, constituting the largest Uighur refugee community in the world.  
Uighur diaspora activists cite a significant shift since 26 December 2020, when the Standing Committee of Chinese People's Congress ratified an extradition accord with Turkey.
The treaty dates to May 2017, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Beijing to attend the Belt and Road Initiative Forum. 
“If we look at China's systematic assimilationist and genocidal policies in East Turkistan, the dangers that this agreement may bring will be severe,” said Erkin Ekrem, director of Ankara-based Uighur Research Institute, using the Uighur preferred “East Turkistan” term for China’s Xinjiang region.  
Ekrem told VOA the extradition treaty tilts largely in favor of China, where capital punishment is applied. He said Uighur refugees who are at risk of a death sentence if they return to China are particularly made vulnerable by the treaty, which makes no stipulation that those who are facing the death penalty there cannot be extradited. 
The agreement, consisting of 22 articles, obligates a signing country to extradite any person wanted on charges of criminal activity to the requesting country. 
“Extradition can only be granted if the conduct targeted by the extradition request constitutes a crime under the laws of both countries,” the agreement states. 
Turkish and Chinese officials have dismissed claims the treaty provides a legal window for the deportation of Uighurs from Turkey.  

13 January 2021 :

Swedish Falun Gong activist Li Zhihui, 53, risks being extradited to China after he has been detained in Poland for almost two years. The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is involved in the case and has according to Expressen, Swedish newspaper, expressed their worries in a letter sent to its Polish counterpart. In the letter the Ministry explained that there is a great risk that the Swedish citizen may be sentenced to death after being handed over to the Chinese side.
Formally, Li Zhihui is wanted by China via Interpol for suspicion of financial crimes. Peter Dahlin of the human rights organization Safeguard Defenders however believes that China wants to punish him for his involvement in Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a movement banned in China as the government viewed it as a potential threat due to its size, independence from the state, and spiritual teachings.
According to Safeguard Defenders and Polish News, Li Zhihui had a successful career as a businessman in China before he came to Sweden in 2012. He received his Swedish citizenship in 2016 and is said to have been active in the Falun Gong movement.
Li Zhihui was arrested in Warsaw airport in March 2019 on his way between Sweden and Bulgaria. Next week, Poland’s Supreme Court will decide whether or not to extradite Li Zhihui to China. Lower courts in Poland have ruled that he should be extradited following promises from the Chinese embassy that his rights will not be violated. But Peter Dahlin doubts that the promises are worth anything and says in an interview with Expressen that there is a long list of cases where China has made promises about how people should be treated. Then those promises are ignored as soon as they are back in China.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry says in an email to Expressen that The Swedish embassy in Warsaw is following the matter closely and that The People’s Republic of China does not meet the criteria for legal certainty. The legal system is under the control of the Communist Party and is therefore not independent.