Few Chinese were even aware of the execution of Akmal Shaikh yesterday. Reports of executions are commonplace, particularly in recent months after bloody anti-Chinese riots in the far west and a high-profile gang trial in a sprawling central metropolis. But news of foreigners being put to death is less common.
The few who have been executed have usually been found guilty of drug trafficking — as was the case with Shaikh — and this is a crime that elicits scant sympathy.
Some debate emerged on the internet, the only free medium for discussion in China, with most comments questioning why a convicted drug smuggler should receive mercy just because he was foreign.
Some referred to the 19th-century opium wars, when British gunboats forced open several Chinese ports to enable merchants to flood the Chinese market with opium from India. Those events more than a century ago still evoke bitter memories among Chinese.
One comment read: “The UK should respect Chinese law and it is not China that should respect these appeals.”Another referred to the last dynasty that ruled China, at the time of the opium wars. “China is not Qing any more; we decide what to do on our land.”
Another wrote: “Britain is looking for excuses. They should have said those who sold opium to China were all mentally imbalanced.” But such comments were few and the death of Shaikh will pass with barely a murmur in China.
The type of case that usually provokes debate and public outrage is where an ordinary worker is pitted against the State. There was the manicurist who stabbed to death a local Communist Party official when he tried to rape her. Such was the public anger that the girl was soon released and sent home on the ground of diminished responsibility. A young man in Shanghai got into a row with police and stabbed six officers to death after he was taken to a local police station. His arrest stirred a storm of debate, with many people saying that the police all too often took advantage of their almost unrestrained powers to oppress the weak. He was executed.
A few weeks ago a woman set herself on fire in protest when local officials tried to demolish her home because it had not been legally constructed. The public outcry was such that the Government is now considering changing the law to reduce the powers of officials to enforce such demolitions.
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发表于 2009-12-30 13:11
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