The issue is not the right of China to dispense justice, but rather the naive and juvenile delusions many people have about China and how advanced it is, how tolerant and humane it has become.
Until China erases these indelibly permanent marks, changes its practice of inhumane treatment of prisoners, barbaric treatment of the Tibetan people, enacts human rights laws to protect its citizens from abuses and violations by the government ... until it stops killing off opposition, imprisoning dissenters, and opening China to freedom and liberty - until then, nothing it is or may become amounts to anything more than a bully that needs to be quartered. For those foolish Americans who believe a Chinese super power could balance out the US - I only wish them a long life - to live long enough to see China collapse, and the truth made public.
British citizen Akmal Shaikh executed in China
Akmal Shaikh, the British man arrested in China over drug smuggling, has been put to death, the Briitsh Foreign Office has confirmed.
29 Dec 2009
The Telegraph
Gordon Brown, the prime minister, condemned the execution "in the strongest terms" saying he was "appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted."
Shaikh, 53, was due to be killed - probably by a shot to the head - in Urumqi, the capital of the far western Xinjiang region, at 10:30 am (0230 GMT) after China's Supreme Court rejected a bid for clemency.
His family, the British government and the British human rights charity Reprieve had been campaigning until the last minute for Shaikh to be spared the death penalty, but China refused to bow to international pressure.
Shaikh's supporters said the father-of-three suffered from bipolar disorder and that his illness should have been a mitigating factor in his sentencing.
But China defended its use of capital punishment and said the evidence of Shaikh's mental illness was "insufficient".
Shaikh is the first national from a European Union country to be executed in China in 50 years, according to Reprieve.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown repeatedly raised Shaikh's case with China's leaders and appealed for clemency, but to no avail.
Reacting to news that the execution had been carried out, Mr Brown said: "I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken.
"At this time our thoughts are with Mr Shaikh's family and friends and I send them our sincere condolences," he said.
Authorities in China have not yet announced that the execution has taken place.
Shaikh, from London, was arrested in September 2007 in Urumqi with four about nine pounds of heroin. Campaigners claimed a criminal gang duped him into carrying the drugs.
He was sentenced to death in December last year and lost his final appeal earlier this month in China's Supreme Court.
Two of Shaikh's cousins visited him in Urumqi on Monday and told him of his fate.
The Supreme Court said the evidence provided by the British side of Shaikh's mental illness was "insufficient", according to a statement published on the central government's website.
It justified its use of capital punishment as a deterrent, saying: "To use the death penalty for extremely threatening and serious crimes involving drugs is beneficial to instilling fear and preventing drug crimes."
Reprieve said it had medical evidence that Shaikh suffered from a delusion he was going to China to record a hit single that would usher in world peace. New witnesses have emerged to back that claim.
Two British men, Paul Newberry and Gareth Saunders, both quoted by Reprieve, said they had helped him record a song in Poland and it was clear that he was mentally disturbed.
Mr Newberry said Shaikh "was clearly suffering from delusions and it seemed to me he was a particularly severe case of manic depressive."
According to the London-based rights group Amnesty International, China executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined, but the actual numbers put to death remain a state secret.
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