As Execution Reports Decline, Law Expert Challenges “Secret”Status (Excerpts)

• Author: Duihua Foundation

In 2010 Dui Hua recorded 700 Chinese executions in a systematic review of open-source materials for the year ended on September 30. This year the same research methodology showed a 35 percent decline in reported executions. Neither figure comes close to the actual number of executions in China, which is a closely guarded state secret.

Amnesty International estimates that China put “thousands” to death in 2010, and there is little reason to expect a change of more than 10 percent from Dui Hua’s 2009 estimate of about 5,000 executions, a number that the government has neither confirmed nor denied. (A source in China’s judiciary recently advised a Dui Hua staff member that the number of executions had in fact decreased in 2011. The source, who is believed to have access to the actual number of executions, declined to give a percentage for the decrease.)

Given this and strict media controls in China, the 452 executions recorded during the past year serve as a minimum number for comparison.

Open Secret

Chinese media reported fewer executions over the past year but published no shortage of articles on the death penalty itself...