Amnesty International called for a moratorium on the...

Amnesty International called for a moratorium on the death penalty in China, saying the country's dysfunctional criminal justice system meant many innocent people were being executed. The call in a new report entitled "Executed according to law?" came a week after a senior Chinese legislator suggested China executed at least 10,000 people a year, about five times more than the rest of the world combined. "In spite of positive developments in criminal procedure law, in practice the Chinese criminal justice system is in no condition to offer fair trials, impartiality, or justice," said the group.
Amnesty's report concluded that the Chinese government routinely abused national laws and international standards in the course of executing thousands of people each year.
It cited examples of miscarriages of justice which are "just the tip of the iceberg" and warranted an immediate moratorium on executions.
"This would be a first step towards the total abolition of the death penalty that the Chinese government has signalled to foreign diplomats is its ultimate goal," Amnesty said.
Amnesty's report traced the ordeal that a person in China went through from being suspected of committing a capital crime through to execution. It said that when detained in China on suspicion of committing a capital crime, no one had the absolute right to immediate legal counsel. Only after being interrogated by police could they engage a lawyer, and even then the right was often denied or interfered with. It was often during the first interrogation that people were tortured and forced to "confess", which could then be used as evidence against them in court, and used towards sentencing them to death, Amnesty said.
Additionally, contrary to international standards, there was no presumption of innocence in Chinese law while political interference could influence the judicial process, the report said.
It cited China's notorious 'strike hard' campaigns, referring to China's frequent campaigns against crime, as putting courts under extreme political pressure to speedily pass ever heavier sentences.
"China must implement the international treaties it is already party to - such as the Convention Against Torture - and it must do everything possible to ratify and implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as a matter of urgency," said Amnesty.