From: Amnesty International: The death penalty worldwide: developments in 2003
China
Limited and incomplete records available to Amnesty International at the end of the year indicated that at least 726 people were executed. The Chinese government keeps national statistics on death sentences and executions secret; the true figures are believed to be much higher.
In January Lobsang Dhondup, a Tibetan from Sichuan province, was executed after being convicted in an unfair trial of “causing explosions” and other offences. The authorities stated that his trial was held in secret because it involved “state secrets”, without providing further clarification. He was executed hours after his sentence was passed, without his case being referred to the Supreme Court as required under Chinese law, and despite official assurances to the USA and the European Union (EU) that his case would receive a “lengthy” review.
In October Shaheer Ali, an ethnic Uighur from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China, was reportedly executed after being forcibly returned in January 2002 to China from Nepal, where he had sought asylum. He was sentenced to death at a secret trial in March 2003 after being convicted of offences including “separatism and organizing and leading a terrorist organization.”
Shaheer Ali was among several Uighurs recognized as refugees by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In radio interviews while in Nepal, he claimed to belong to a non-militant organization called the East Turkestan Islamic Reform Party and to have been tortured while imprisoned in Guma (Pishan) in the XUAR in 1994.
Please also check out: World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Borrowed From: Daihatsu Graceland
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 