China
Death penalty and prisoners' rights · Archive since 1999
Data card
- Legal status
- Retentionist
- Executions recorded in 2026
- 0
- Executions recorded in 2025
- 0
- First news item in the archive
- JANUARY 1, 1999 · In January, the Nanyang Intermediate People's Court...
- News items in the archive
- 2,796
Source: Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026.
China is classified as Retentionist in the Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026. In 2026 the association recorded 0 executions in the country, against 0 the year before. The archive holds 2,796 news items on China, from 1999 to today.
China is believed to carry out more executions than any other country, but the figure is a state secret: no official statistics exist, and the known cases are those reported by the press or heard in public trials. Capital punishment applies to a large number of offences, including economic and drug offences, and the system also provides for a death sentence with a two year suspension, which in practice is often converted into life imprisonment.
The news on this page is a small part of what happens, and it is the part that can be documented.
Latest news
- 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 6, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYCHINA. FALUN GONG BODIES CARVED UP FOR ORGANS
the Falun Dafa Information Center revealed that, in response to public exposure, officials in China had begun a massive, deadly campaign to destroy evidence of concentration camps holding practitioners of Falun Gong; at the camps, the Falun Gong were kill
- APRIL 3, 2006AustraliaDEATH 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.
APRIL 3, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYCHINA. 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.
MARCH 31, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYCHINA. 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. 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 28, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYCHINA. 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 24, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYCHINA. 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. 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 21, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYCHINA. 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 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.
- MARCH 20, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. DEATH SENTENCE FOR ROBBERY AND MURDER
Jin Xiaoguo was sentenced to death for robbery and murder, while his accomplice was given 15 years in prison, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate Prosecutors' Office said.
- MARCH 18, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH OVER MURDER OF JAPANESE CITIZEN
Chinese national Han Enze was sentenced to death and two others received prison terms in China over the murder and robbery of a Japanese nightclub manager in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in 2001.
- MARCH 15, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. OFFICIAL GETS DEATH FOR KILLING NAGGING MISTRESS
Guan Canrong a former official in China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was sentenced to death in the contract killing of his nagging mistress who pestered him to divorce his wife and marry her.
MARCH 14, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYCHINA. SIX MEMBERS OF DRUG RING SENTENCED TO DEATH IN GUIZHOU PROVINCE
four cardinal members of a notorious drug ring that was accused of trafficking 21 kilograms of heroin have been sentenced to death at first trial in southwest China's Guizhou Province.
- MARCH 11, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. CONDITIONS NOT RIPE TO ABOLISH DEATH PENALTY, SPOKESMAN
China, for the moment, does not have the right conditions for abolishing capital punishment, said spokesman Sun Huapu of the Supreme People's Court.
- MARCH 11, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. REFORMS FOR DEATH PENALTY TRIALS IN 2006
in order to improve the handing down of death sentences, top judge Xiao Yang said that Chinese courts would start to hold open court sessions when hearing death penalty trials in the second instance.
- MARCH 4, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. SEAFOOD TRIAD LEADER EXECUTED IN SHENZHEN
Chen Kegeng, the leader of a notorious triad which had controlled three leading seafood markets in Shenzhen for three years was executed.
- MARCH 3, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. TWO MEN EXECUTED FOR MURDER OF FAMILY
two men convicted of hacking to death a family of three, including a 4-year-old boy, were sentenced to death and executed in China’s Yunnan Province.
- MARCH 1, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
While the regulations do not address the issue of what the government calls...
While the regulations do not address the issue of what the government calls...
- FEBRUARY 27, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. PROVINCE TAPS THIEVES WITH EXECUTION
Courts in China's southern province of Guangdong will introduce harsher penalties, including death, to deter motorcycle-riding purse snatchers who sometimes chop off the hands of victims who resist, the Yangcheng Evening News said.
FEBRUARY 27, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYCHINA. 8,000 EXECUTIONS EVERY YEAR, SCHOLAR AT THE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
the number of executions in China is a state secret, but Liu Renwen, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said he agreed with estimates in academic circles that the figure was likely to be about 8,000 a year.
- FEBRUARY 24, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. DEATH PENALTY CASES TO BE HEARD IN OPEN COURT
all death penalty appeals must be heard in an open court from the latter half of this year to better protect human rights, China's chief justice Xiao Yang announced.
FEBRUARY 22, 2006TaiwanDEATH PENALTYCHINA. TWO TAIWANESE EXECUTED FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING
two Taiwanese nationals convicted of drug trafficking were executed in southern China's Guangdong province after being convicted of possessing 12 kilograms (26.4 pounds) of the methamphetamine ice.
- FEBRUARY 21, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. DEATH SENTENCES UPHELD FOR GANG MEMBERS
two gang members had their death sentences upheld at the Baoding Municipal Intermediate People's Court in North China's Hebei Province.
- FEBRUARY 18, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. SEVEN SENTENCED TO DEATH OVER ATTACK ON VILLAGERS
four men were sentenced to death in China for organising and carrying out an attack in June 2005 that killed six villagers protesting about the seizure of their land for a power plant.
FEBRUARY 14, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTYEUROPEAN UNION. MARCO PANNELLA DEPOSITS PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION ON CHINA’S RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
Hands Off Cain President and MEP Marco Pannella deposited a question to the European Parliament regarding the violation of human rights and religious repression perpetrated in China commencing with the case of Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer who for years has take
- FEBRUARY 6, 2006ChinaDEATH PENALTY
CHINA. DEATH SENTENCE FOR MAN CONVICTED IN KIDNAPPING CASE
Ye Li, a 24-year-old Henan Province native, was sentenced to death by the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, China, for kidnapping and murder.