China
2026
- GOVERNMENT
- communist state
- CONSTITUTION
- December 4, 1982, amended several times, last in 2004.
- LEGAL SYSTEM
- based on civil law, of Soviet derivation and derived from the legal principles of the continental civil code
- LEGISLATIVE SYSTEM
- unicameral, National People's Congress (Quanguo Renmin Daibiao Dahui)
- JUDICIAL SYSTEM
- Supreme People's Court, judges appointed by the National People's Congress; local people's courts and special people's courts
RELIGIONS
Buddhists 18.2%, Christians 5.1%, Muslims 1.8%, others 0.7%, unspecified 52.2%
From the country
- APRIL 6, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER EXECUTED
Fu Zhongtao, a man convicted of hitting and dragging a nine-year-old girl to her death with a luxury car, was executed by lethal injection in northeast China.
- APRIL 3, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW DEATH SENTENCES ISSUED BY LOWER COURTS
responding to intense public criticism over the high rate of executions, China's apex court established three new criminal tribunals to review certain types of death sentence passed by provincial courts.
- APRIL 3, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
AUSTRALIA. GOVT LOBBIES CHINESE PREMIER ON DEATH PENALTY
the Australian Federal Government raised with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao the case of a man facing the death penalty in China over the murder of a Canberra university student.
- MARCH 31, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. PIPELINE OIL THIEVES FACE DEATH PENALTY
Chinese police vowed to clamp down on pipeline oil theft, even threatening to impose the death penalty. According to police oil theft cost the industry more than 1bn yuan ($124.6m, £71.8m) and led to 2,877 arrests.
- MARCH 28, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. LEADER OF ORGANIZED CRIME RING SENTENCED TO DEATH
Zhao Chun, leader of an organized crime ring in the suburban county of Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province, was sentenced to death for crimes including murder.
- MARCH 28, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. CHINA BANS SALES OF HUMAN ORGANS
China's Health Ministry explicitly banned sales of human organs in an apparent attempt to clean up the country's lucrative but laxly regulated transplant business.
- MARCH 24, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. WOMAN EXECUTED FOR TRAFFICKING 31 BABY BOYS
a Chinese woman was executed for trafficking 31 children, the Supreme Court said, after another two men were sentenced to death earlier this week for kidnapping and selling baby boys.
- MARCH 21, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. JAPAN'S RICH BUY ORGANS FROM EXECUTED CHINESE PRISONERS
hundreds Hundreds of well-off Japanese and other nationals are turning to China's burgeoning human organ transplant industry, paying tens of thousands of pounds for livers and kidneys, which in some cases have been harvested from executed prisoners and so
- MARCH 21, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR FORCIBLY TATTOOING WOMEN
a man in northeast China was sentenced to death for forcibly tattooing hundreds of Chinese characters on the bodies of three women.
- MARCH 21, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. TEACHER EXECUTED FOR RAPING FOUR STUDENTS
Zhao Huisheng, a substitute teacher who raped four third-grade students and molested several others at a village elementary school in northwest China, was put to death. Zhao reportedly raped the students, who were around age nine, in his office when they
- MARCH 21, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. UN TORTURE OFFICIAL URGES CHINA TO CHANGE SYSTEM
UN torture investigator Manfred Nowak who made a landmark visit to China in 2005 called for sweeping changes in its police and court systems to reduce the widespread use of torture.
- MARCH 20, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. BABY SELLERS SENTENCED TO DEATH
two men were sentenced to death by a court in China’s Yunnan Province for stealing and trafficking 12 baby boys across three provinces.