Mass Executions in China

[easygoing]

Has anybody been watching the special reportage on Sky News? They are even using "mobile execution buses" where several executions (via lethal injection) can actually be carried out simultaneously in the bus. Their organs are then typically removed for transplant.

This is barbaric and I think that Beijing should forfeit the honour of hosting the Olympic Games.

[Munion]

I saw it at lunchtime. It put me off my sandwich, thoroughly depressing stuff.

As a Westerner what the Chinese are doing goes against all my principles.

BUT

Why should the West force its notion of human rights on the Chinese?

The very idea of what are human rights is a heated topic of debate in itself. One only has to look at the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights to view the Islamic take on what is human rights.

Still it is not an issue we should run away from. The video of the men blindfolded and on their knees about to take a bullet in the back of their heads is not something we can ignore.

[Gladstone]

So? because they execute more people than other countries with the death penalty and do it in a van instead? How does this make them any worse.

One Chinese offical is quoted as saying China executes "close to 10 000 criminals a year"

Me thinks if they are getting that number of criminals to execute then maybe their crime prevention plans need some work?

[hinkar]

Why should the West force its notion of human rights on the Chinese?

The very idea of what are human rights is a heated topic of debate in itself. One only has to look at the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights to view the Islamic take on what is human rights.

Ah, a moral relativist.

[farnaby]

So? because they execute more people than other countries with the death penalty and do it in a van instead? How does this make them any worse.

It is worse because:
- trials last only a few hours, hardly enough time to create a proper defence
- denial of access of family to prisoners after arrest
- repression of defence lawyers
- the link to demands for organs-for-transplant, profits of which illegally going to doctors and members of the judiciary according to Epoch Times

The moral outcome per execution may be the same as you see in e.g. the US system (deliberate killing, possibility of executing innocents) but when the process is so obviously worse and the numbers so high, it's on its own gruesome level.

[Gladstone]

I take your points.

However, unlike many on the left, I don't think economic sanctions, or consumer boycotts are effective in changing the behaviour of a state, we've had sanctions against North Korea for decades, and it is still a totalitarian dictatorship with a rigid economic system , grinding poverty and massive human rights abuses.

Another reason I don't think boycotts or sanctions are effective is, where is the line? EVEY COMPANY, every country, has something wrong with their practices that we could find objectionable, where do you decide to draw the line?

The USA recently proposed a plan to have defendents refused access to the evidence against them in a trial, and still could be excecuted, should we impose sancions on them?

What about when we had internment?

The Sauids behead people and stone them to death what about them?

The United States doesn't have the Death Penalty; some of its States do.

[Pax]

So? because they execute more people than other countries with the death penalty and do it in a van instead? How does this make them any worse.

It is worse because:
- trials last only a few hours, hardly enough time to create a proper defence
- denial of access of family to prisoners after arrest
- repression of defence lawyers
- the link to demands for organs-for-transplant, profits of which illegally going to doctors and members of the judiciary according to Epoch Times

The moral outcome per execution may be the same as you see in e.g. the US system (deliberate killing, possibility of executing innocents) but when the process is so obviously worse and the numbers so high, it's on its own gruesome level.

Still American corporations such as Wal-Mart don't have a problem with it. It's a fascistic slave state, where unions are banned and members are tortured and killed....a corporate nirvana then.

there's nothing new under the sun...
Profits über Alles! American Corporations and Hitler


Ford and the Führer

But how about a new internaional body, a Fair Trade Organization to put the criminal corps engaging and supporting these practices out of business? Consign this sh.it to history....at least we have the power to do it, unlike the Chinese.

[My One Spud]

The United States doesn't have the Death Penalty; some of its States do.

You are incorrect. The Federal Government may use the death penalty, although they use it sparingly.

What is more distressing about a van for executions?