China sentences to death and immediately executes around...

China sentences to death and immediately executes around 10,000 convicted criminals every year, according to Chen Zhonglin, a delegate who was seeking to curb the practice at China's parliamentary session.
"Every year China has nearly 10,000 cases of the death penalty that result in immediate execution. This is about five times more than all the other death penalty cases from other nations combined," said Chen, a National People's Congress (NPC) delegate from Chongqing municipality.
Chen's statement, in a weekend edition of the China Youth Daily, was believed to be the first time that such a number had appeared in the state-controlled press.If correct, the numbers put to death would be far higher than the estimated annual number of executions reported by human rights groups.
While China is notorious for its liberal use of the death penalty, it had previously regarded the number of people executed each year as a closely guarded state secret.
In a proposal signed by Chen and 40 other delegates to the NPC, the government was urged to review all death sentences at the Supreme People's Court, China's highest court, instead of allowing provincial high courts to issue the execution order.
"The power of final verification and approval is very much tied up in the fate of some 10,000 people executed every year in China and should be a deep concern for everyone," said Chen.