China's harsh crackdown on crime executed unknown thousands...

China's harsh crackdown on crime executed unknown thousands of prisoners in 2002 in judicial processes in which torture was common and lawyers rare. At least 3.000 people had been executed since President Jiang Zemin announced the crackdown in April 2003. Periodic campaigns in response to rising crime and concerns about weakening social order placed huge pressures on local police to solve crimes quickly, which they often did by extorting confessions by torture. Convictions were sometimes handed down days after arrests, appeals were processed briskly and executions were carried out just after sentencing. Monthly tally of death sentences became kind of grim score card showing how each province was doing, but real numbers were believed much higher.