Several hundred Chinese schoolchildren watched public...

Several hundred Chinese schoolchildren watched public sentencings for criminals who were later executed, Amnesty International said. The criminals, convicted of murder, assault and kidnapping, were handed their death sentences in Changsha in central Hunan province, Amnesty said in a statement citing a Chinese Internet report.
After the sentencing, the men were taken to an execution ground and shot, Amnesty said, quoting the 'tom' web portal.
The schoolchildren were aged between six and 17 and were among the 2,500 people who watched the sentencing on September 27, the day of China's Mid-Autumn festival.
"The Chinese government regularly 'celebrates' national holidays by executing large numbers of criminals," Amnesty's Asia director Ingrid Massage said.
"This year, the Mid-Autumn festival falls in the same week as China's National Day on Friday 1 October and there has been a surge of executions."
Amnesty said at least 100 people had been executed in China in the past few days.