China executed about 2,400 people in 2013 and will execute the same number this year, as the use of capital punishment to combat separatist attacks in Xinjiang bucks a trend of declining execution numbers, the San Francisco-based rights group Dui Hua said in a report.
China executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined, but since the Supreme People’s Court regained the power of final review of death sentences in 2007, it has executed fewer people, up to 50 per cent less in some parts of the country.
The Beijing government does not release the number of executions it carries out each year and the information is a state secret, but Dui Hua executive director John Kamm said he was told by a judicial official early this year that the number of executions dropped by some 20 per cent in 2013 compared to the previous year. Dui Hua previously estimated that China executed 3,000 people in 2012.
Dui Hua said its 2013 estimate was based on data published in the Southern Weekly, which tallied with information provided to Dui Hua.
“The mainland magazine reported that a former senior judge of the Supreme People’s Court stated at a seminar in July that the number of executions had reached one-tenth of the highest number recorded since 1979,” the report said.
“In 1983 –the first year of the Strike Hard campaign during which the power to approve capital punishment was given to provincial high courts – 24,000 people were sentenced to death.”
Recent annual declines in executions recorded are likely to be offset in 2014 by the use of capital punishment in anti-terrorism campaigns in Xinjiang and the anti-corruption campaign.