Capital punishment is a legal penalty in China. It is commonly applied for murder and drug trafficking, and is a legal penalty for other offenses. Executions are carried out by lethal injection or by shooting.
Most known executions took place in China (1000s), Iran (at least 576) Saudi Arabia (196), Egypt (24), and the USA (18). In 2022, 93% of known global executions (excluding China) were carried out in the Middle East and North Africa.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty for murder in Japan, and is applied in cases of multiple murder or aggravated single murder. Executions in Japan are carried out by hanging, and the country has seven execution chambers, all located in major cities.
The death penalty has been a part of the Chinese culture for thousands of years. The use of the death penalty was especially pronounced during the rule of the Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 207 BC), according to whom its legality was applied as an ideology with respect to governing through laws without morals.
In practice, China traditionally uses the firing squad as its standard method of execution. However, in recent years, China has adopted lethal injection as its sole method of execution, though execution by firing squad can still be administered.
They were whipping, flogging, hard labour, exile and capital punishment. Death was still the ultimate price to pay, but gone were the cruel and unusual ways to die.
India voted against it. In 2021, at the UN Human Rights Council, India also opposed a draft resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. Nevertheless, the actual number of executions in India remains comparatively low. Since 2000, India has carried out just eight executions in total.
Moratorium. In February 1998, then-president Kim Dae-jung enacted a moratorium on executions. This moratorium is still in effect as of 2023. Thus, executions in Korea are considered to be abolished de facto.
Section 316 of the Criminal Procedure Code states that the death penalty in Singapore is to be conducted by hanging. Hangings always take place at dawn and are conducted by the long drop method. The Singapore government has affirmed its choice of execution by hanging in favour of other methods.
The death penalty is mandatory for murder in Hong Kong but the Governor has invariably commuted death sentences. The last execution was carried out in 1965.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation carried out the death penalty intermittently, with up to 10 or so officially a year. In 1996, pending Russia's entry into the Council of Europe, a moratorium was placed on the death penalty, which is still in place as of 2023.
HRI confirmed at least one drug-related execution in China but reported the country was believed to have conducted more than a thousand executions in 2021. HRI also confirmed 131 executions for drug offenses in Iran.
In the People's Republic of China, access by the general public to firearms is subject to some of the strictest control measures in the world. With the exception of individuals with hunting permits and some ethnic minorities, civilian firearm ownership is restricted to non-individual entities.
Hanging is the only common method of execution in 21st-century Iran, usually carried out in prison. Compared to other countries that use hanging (such as Japan or Malaysia) with a complex gallows designed to drop the condemned and break the neck, Iran's gallows are very simple and inexpensive.
Capital punishment in Germany has been abolished for all crimes, and is now explicitly prohibited by constitution. It was abolished in West Germany in 1949, in the Saarland in 1956 (as part of the Saarland joining West Germany and becoming a state of West Germany), and East Germany in 1987.
Capital punishment in Thailand is enforced by lethal injection. The death penalty is not imposed immediately. There is a delay because a convict can appeal to two more courts and can apply for King's pardon. The death punishment is carried out in the Bang Kwang Prison in Bangkok (also known as “Bangkok Hilton”).
In practice, all death sentences and executions since 2003 have been imposed for murder-related offences. The last non-homicide-related execution in Taiwan took place in October 2002, in the case of a Pingtung County fisherman who was accused of trafficking 295 kg of heroin in 1993.
Current status. Today, the death penalty has been abolished in France.
There are five methods of execution in the United States: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad.
Method. Saudi Arabia has a criminal justice system based on a form of Shari'ah reflecting a particular state-sanctioned interpretation of Islam. Execution is usually carried out by beheading with a sword and hanging but may occasionally be performed by shooting or firing squad. Saudi Arabia performs public executions.
China prohibits naming children strange names. This law is strange as one would expect that the choice of a baby's name depends on the parents as they are the ones who gave birth. In China, it is quite different as the government does not allow naming a child a name that sounds weird.
Arrest and detention
You may be subject to an INTERPOL Notice. Chinese criminal law is applicable to both citizens of China and foreigners who commit crimes within the territory of China. The police can detain suspects for up to 37 days before the prosecutor approves the arrest.
Severe historical execution methods include the breaking wheel, hanged, drawn and quartered, mazzatello, boiling to death, death by burning, execution by drowning, death by starvation, immurement, flaying, disembowelment, crucifixion, impalement, crushing, execution by elephant, keelhauling, stoning, dismemberment, ...