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
- 2,785
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 2,785 news items on China, from 1999 to today.
Latest news
- 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
- JANUARY 21, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Reform in the sphere of human rights and democracy...
Reform in the sphere of human rights and democracy in China should be gradual rather than arise from a revolutionary process, Jan Ruml, the deputy chairman of the Senate from the Freedom Union, told CTK after meeting Chinese dissident Wang Dan
- JANUARY 21, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Reform in the sphere of human rights and democracy...
Reform in the sphere of human rights and democracy in China should be gradual rather than arise from a revolutionary process, Jan Ruml, the deputy chairman of the Senate from the Freedom Union, told CTK after meeting Chinese dissident Wang Dan
- JANUARY 18, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
A wife's desperate struggle to have a baby with her...
A wife's desperate struggle to have a baby with her husband who had been sentenced to death, ended on the morning of January 18 with his execution, Beijing Morning News reported
- JANUARY 17, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Hands Off Cain and 30 Falun Gong practitioners from...
Hands Off Cain and 30 Falun Gong practitioners from Taiwan demonstrated ion front of the Chinese embassy in Rome in protest against repression by the Chinese authorities of the spiritual movement, and the death sentences handed out to two Christians
- JANUARY 17, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Guangxi provincial judicial organs sentenced Rao Ping...
Guangxi provincial judicial organs sentenced Rao Ping to death for drug trafficking
- JANUARY 17, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Nanping Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Fujian...
Nanping Municipal Intermediate People's Court, Fujian Province, sentenced Xu Jie to death for organizing a triad gang, assault, offering bribes and gambling, the Fujian Daily reported
- JANUARY 16, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
The Sichuan Provincial Higher People's Court imposed...
The Sichuan Provincial Higher People's Court imposed the death sentence on Li Yushu, former deputy mayor of Leshan City in the southwest China Province, for taking bribes and other crimes
- JANUARY 16, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
A Chinese court sentenced a South Korean drug trafficker...
A Chinese court sentenced a South Korean drug trafficker to death
- JANUARY 15, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
A death sentence passed on a Swiss national for the...
A death sentence passed on a Swiss national for the 1997 murder of a schoolgirl in China's Yunnan province has been commuted to life imprisonment, AP said
- JANUARY 13, 2002ChinaDEATH PENALTY
Guo Long Hai, 46, the director of a state-owned company...
Guo Long Hai, 46, the director of a state-owned company in the southern Chinese province of Guizhou, was executed after a tribunal in the city of Nanzhou found him guilty of raping 15 women and murdering 14 of them from 1990 to 2001