CHINA: 18 vans used as 'death on wheels'

Provincial authorities in China have introduced "mobile execution vans" in a bid to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of carrying out death sentences, Amnesty International reported yesterday.

The report said 18 converted 24-seat buses were being distributed to all intermediate courts and one high court in Yunnan province, each equipped for executing convicts by lethal injection.

It also said the president of Yunnan's provincial high court, Zhao Shijie, had praised the development as a sign that China's system is becoming "more civilized and humane."

However, an American congressman in Geneva for the annual meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission denounced the vehicles as "killing vans, just like their abortion vans which are used to destroy unborn children and to hurt women."

"The similarity to me is appalling," Rep. Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey Republican, said in an interview. "It's death on wheels."

Mr. Smith, a critic of China's human rights record and a vocal opponent of the death penalty in the United States, said the execution buses may be more efficient from the Chinese point of view.

"But they also mean there is significantly less due process being exercised. The right of the defendant and his or her ability to defend themselves becomes less possible."

The report said 1,146 executions were carried out in 28 countries last year, with 84 % of those performed in China, Iran, the United States and Vietnam. At least 726 persons were executed in China, at least 108 in Iran, 65 in the United States and 64 in Vietnam.

At the same time, at least 2,756 death sentences were handed down by courts in 63 countries, the human rights group said.

Judit Arenas Licea, a spokeswoman for Amnesty, said the records for China and some other countries were incomplete and that the true figures could be much higher.

Chen Zhouglin, a member of the National People's Congress and a professor of politics and law in Chongging Province, suggested last month that China executes "nearly 10,000" people each year, Amnesty said.

Amnesty also criticized China for the execution of an ethnic Uighur on offenses of "separatism and ... terrorism," after he was forcibly returned from Nepal, where he had sought asylum and had been recognized by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.