Hundreds of people have been executed in China this month in a fearsome "strike-hard" campaign to crack down on crime, under which courts have been given carte blanche to speed through trials.
Since the beginning of April, thousands of Chinese have taken part in public gatherings after which the condemned men and women have been led away to be shot in the back of the head.
Sometimes the families of the dead get the bodies of their loved ones back, once they have paid for the bullet.
China already stands accused by rights organizations of executing more people than any other country in the world -- although it does not publish official statistics on the death penalty because they are a "state secret."
But even by China's standards, putting together reports in the country's state-run press, the pace of executions has reached staggering proportions under the strike-hard campaign launched at the start of April by President Jiang Zemin (
Adding up the figures from reports in papers received in Beijing, at least 400 people have been executed this month -- including 200 in a single day on April 20.
But the figure is likely to be higher -- numerous dailies have reported on groups of people facing the firing squads without giving a precise number.
"That is only the tip of the iceberg. The reason why they're keeping it quiet is because the real number is likely to be very, very large," a Western diplomat said.
Police are under orders to step up the number of arrests. Overflowing courts, trying to keep step with orders, are speeding up sentencing, with heavier punishments being handed out.
"We've heard cases of suspects being arrested on day one and executed on day three," the diplomat added.
Although about 60 crimes carry the death penalty, many of them non-violent crimes, the crackdown has led to a simplification of the legislation, Amnesty International said.
The rights groups is concerned about "summary procedures and miscarriages of justice," said Amnesty's China researcher Catherine Baber, who is based in Hong Kong. "During a strike hard campaign, crimes that might otherwise get the culprit a prison sentence are punished with the death penalty."
In previous strike-hard campaigns, quotas were imposed forcing the authorities in each province to put to death a given number of suspects, said Baber.
"Certain areas are very keen to report that they are working hard on that initiative," she said.
One judicial official in Changde, in central Hunan Province, where 14 people were sentenced to death last week for a series of murders, denied the existence of any quota system.
But he acknowledged that defendants were grouped together as a warning to other criminals.
"They had already been given death sentences, but these cases were put together in order for propaganda," he said.
The authorities have justified the "get-tough" campaign saying the crime rate rose 50 percent last year.
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