China steps up New Year executions

China leads the world in its use of the death penalty

By the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Beijing

China is marking the end of 2001 with a stream of executions.

In the last week China has put to death more than 40 people, for crimes ranging from murder to embezzlement.

In China, new year has long been a time for executions, but even by Chinese standards the number this year end has been unusually high.

At year's end, China has once again earned the dubious honour of being the world's top executioner, putting to death more people than the rest of the world put together.

Lethal injection

In the coming weeks, as the country prepares for the Chinese Lunar New Year in February, there will likely be dozens more deaths. It is all part of the Chinese Government's effort to crack down on the alarming increase in violent crime.

Among those executed in the last week were two men who stabbed a student to death for refusing to hand over his wallet. Eight others were part of a gang convicted of a string of robberies and murders, in the historic tourist city of Xiang.

But there are also plenty of executions for lesser crimes. Last week a government official in southern China was sentenced to death for embezzling $300,000, and on Sunday death sentences were reportedly passed on two founders of an illegal Protestant church.

In the last 12 months China has executed well over 2,000 people and by some estimates as many as 5,000.

It has attempted to deflect criticism of its harsh penal code by introducing lethal injection as an execution method, replacing the usual bullet to the back of the head.

Critics have suggested the new method is simply cheaper, and makes it easier to harvest the executed prisoners' organs for use in transplants.