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
- MARCH 1, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Two members of a criminal gang who battered people...
Two members of a criminal gang who battered people to death with a hammer and robbed them of valuable items were executed in Beijing
- MARCH 1, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Bengbu Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Anhui...
Bengbu Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Anhui Province, sentenced Zhou Qidong, member of the Municipal Standing Committee, to death for intentional homicide
- FEBRUARY 27, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Two men were sentenced to death by Shanghai No 1 Intermediate...
Two men were sentenced to death by Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Court for murdering a police officer on February 8 in the city's Pudong New Area
- FEBRUARY 26, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
A non-legislative report by Vasco Graga Moura (EPP-ED,...
A non-legislative report by Vasco Graga Moura (EPP-ED, P) on the Commission's paper on an EU strategy towards China was adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee with one vote against and two abstentions
- FEBRUARY 26, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
A non-legislative report by Vasco Graga Moura (EPP-ED,...
A non-legislative report by Vasco Graga Moura (EPP-ED, P) on the Commission's paper on an EU strategy towards China was adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee with one vote against and two abstentions
- FEBRUARY 25, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Angry laid-off workers and their relatives killed three...
Angry laid-off workers and their relatives killed three managers at financially struggling, state-owned enterprises in central China in 2001, state media and local officials said
- FEBRUARY 24, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Religious tolerance in China is unlikely to follow...
Religious tolerance in China is unlikely to follow in the wake of economic liberalism
- FEBRUARY 22, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
The Saitama District Court sentenced a 28-year-old...
The Saitama District Court sentenced a 28-year-old Chinese man, formerly a graduate student in Japan, to death for killing his girlfriend and her husband
- FEBRUARY 14, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
The family of the South China Church leader Gong Shengliang,...
The family of the South China Church leader Gong Shengliang, sentenced to death along with his relative Li Ying and three other church members on a range of criminal charges in a closed trial in December 2001, is fighting to secure his release
- FEBRUARY 11, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
China released a Hong Kong businessman jailed for Bible...
China released a Hong Kong businessman jailed for Bible smuggling, following intense diplomatic pressure from America in the run-up to a visit to Beijing by President Bush
- FEBRUARY 11, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
An international campaign has begun on behalf of five...
An international campaign has begun on behalf of five leaders of a defiant evangelical Christian group who were given death sentences in December 2001 under China's 1999 anti-cult law
- FEBRUARY 9, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Chinese traffic police officer Tan Zhiwei was sentenced...
Chinese traffic police officer Tan Zhiwei was sentenced to death for embezzling 20 million yuan (HK$18
- FEBRUARY 8, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
The Southern Daily newspaper reported that the Zhanjiang...
The Southern Daily newspaper reported that the Zhanjiang Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Guangdong Province, sentenced Liu Hai to death and Zhou Fusheng, Peng Yong and Huang Xiaobo to death with a reprieve
- FEBRUARY 7, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Xie Hong, former deputy chief of the public security...
Xie Hong, former deputy chief of the public security bureau and head of the traffic police detachment in Yunfu city, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve
- FEBRUARY 7, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Guigang Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Guangxi...
Guigang Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Guangxi Province, sentenced to death Huang Hailin, director of the Guigang Municipal Rural Enterprise Bureau and chairman of the Rural Enterprises Development Fund Association, for accepting bribes
- FEBRUARY 6, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Amnesty International appealed for the lives of members...
Amnesty International appealed for the lives of members of a banned Protestant church who have been sentenced to death
- FEBRUARY 5, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Li Jiwen and Zhang Yu were sentenced to death after...
Li Jiwen and Zhang Yu were sentenced to death after being found guilty of mugging by the No
- FEBRUARY 4, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Three men were sentenced to death for disrupting power...
Three men were sentenced to death for disrupting power supplies and damaging electrical equipment, the People's Court Daily reported
- FEBRUARY 4, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Xishuangbanna Tai Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate...
Xishuangbanna Tai Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate People's Court, Yunnan Province, sentenced to death Li Kui, 41, deputy director of Xishuangbanna Prefecture Forestry Public Security Bureau, for drug trafficking
- JANUARY 31, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
China executed former truck driver Hua Ruizhuo for...
China executed former truck driver Hua Ruizhuo for killing 14 Beijing prostitutes over three years, the official Xinhua news agency said
- JANUARY 31, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Three Hong Kong men - Cheng Pong-chueng, Yeung Lor-fu...
Three Hong Kong men - Cheng Pong-chueng, Yeung Lor-fu and Lam Pui-man - were sentenced to death by Shenzhen's Intermediate People's Court after they were convicted of selling about 180 kilograms of illegal drugs
- JANUARY 31, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
The Shenzhen Municipal Intermediate People's Court,...
The Shenzhen Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Guangdong Province, sentenced "drug criminals" Zheng Bangxiang, Yang Laifu and Lin Peiwen to death and Du Zhiyuan to death with a reprieve
- JANUARY 29, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
A centre for execution by lethal injection is to be...
A centre for execution by lethal injection is to be established in China as part of a new policy to phase out the use of the firing squad in capital punishment cases
- JANUARY 28, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
A Hong Kong businessman was sentenced to two years...
A Hong Kong businessman was sentenced to two years imprisonment for smuggling Bibles into the mainland and two mainlanders have been jailed for three years and fined 150,000 dollars each
- JANUARY 27, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
China backed away from putting an alleged Bible-smuggler...
China backed away from putting an alleged Bible-smuggler on trial for his life, instead charging him with the lesser offence of illegal trading
- JANUARY 26, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Sixteen members of a gang accused of running a massive...
Sixteen members of a gang accused of running a massive protection racket in Xuchang, Henan province, were executed after a public sentencing rally, AFP reported
- JANUARY 26, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
China is willing to improve its human rights record...
China is willing to improve its human rights record but progress may be slow, according to Swiss delegates returning from talks in Beijing
- JANUARY 25, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Two murderers who brutally killed 14 people were executed...
Two murderers who brutally killed 14 people were executed in Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province in north China
- JANUARY 24, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
A Chinese drug trafficker who escaped from prison in...
A Chinese drug trafficker who escaped from prison in 1995 was recently arrested by Myanmar police and handed over to the Chinese police
- JANUARY 23, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
The Guangzhou Daily reported that in early January...
The Guangzhou Daily reported that in early January Neijiang Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Sichuan Province, sentenced "gangsters" Li Ke and Xu Shuliang to death and Ye Ping to death with a reprieve of two years