In a previous topic on the Chinese plan to control the weather during the upcoming Olympic games people seemed to want to avoid a human rights debate. I think this topic is probably a bit more focused.
Showing their legidary efficancy, the Chinese have begun building mobile execution chambers.
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I found this story through BLDGBLOG, who takes this idea to it's logical conclusion: Pimp My Death Van.
Showing their legidary efficancy, the Chinese have begun building mobile execution chambers.
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| CHONGQING, China — Zhang Shiqiang, known as the Nine-Fingered Devil, first tasted justice at 13. His father caught him stealing and cut off one of Zhang's fingers.
Twenty-five years later, in 2004, Zhang met retribution once more, after his conviction for double murder and rape. He was one of the first people put to death in China's new fleet of mobile execution chambers. The country that executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined last year is slowly phasing out public executions by firing squad in favor of lethal injections. Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped "death vans" that shuttle from town to town. Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely. The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China "promotes human rights now," says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van in which "Devil" Zhang took his final ride. |
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| Sixty-eight different crimes – more than half non-violent offenses such as tax evasion and drug smuggling – are punishable by death in China. That means the death vans are likely to keep rolling. |
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| China's critics contend that the transition from firing squads to injections in death vans facilitates an illegal trade in prisoners' organs. Injections leave the whole body intact and require participation of doctors. Organs can 'be extracted in a speedier and more effective way than if the prisoner is shot,' says Mark Allison, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong. 'We have gathered strong evidence suggesting the involvement of (Chinese) police, courts and hospitals in the organ trade. |
I found this story through BLDGBLOG, who takes this idea to it's logical conclusion: Pimp My Death Van.
