China has executed at least 1,781 people since it launched a nationwide campaign against crime in April, the human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement yesterday.
Those executed were among at least 2,960 people condemned in the "Strike Hard" campaign, which started as a drive against organized crime but has expanded to target crimes ranging from embezzlement to pimping and ethnic separatist activity, it said.
"The campaign is nothing short of an execution frenzy -- a huge waste of human life," the London-based group said.
Many of the condemned prisoners were brought to public sentencing rallies in front of huge crowds or paraded through the streets on the way to the firing squad, it said.
The tally, which is based on state media reports, "is only the barest minimum figure because we know that cases are only selectively reported and what national statistics there are a still a state secret," said Catherine Baber of Amnesty's Hong Kong office.
Information on executions tends to be especially hard to obtain in regions such as Buddhist Tibet and Muslim Xinjiang, minority areas where Chinese policies come under intense international scrutiny, rights activists say.
Amnesty, a leading opponent of capital punishment, said police and prosecutors were given orders to achieve "quick approval, quick arrest, quick trial and quick results" and lawyers were told to work with the police and prosecution.
"Curtailed procedures plus great pressure on police and judicial authorities mean that the potential for miscarriages of justice, arbitrary sentencing and the execution of innocent people is immense," it said.
Provincial official media have reported almost daily batches of executions since the drive began with a campaign against organized crime late last year and accelerated in April, claiming convicted killers, robbers and corrupt officials.
There was a huge increase in executions of drug traffickers for International Anti-Drugs Day on June 26, accounting for most of the death sentences and executions in June, Baber said.
The Strike Hard campaign, which began in April and will run for two years, has seen the death penalty used to punish ethnic separatism and "illegal religious activities" in Xinjiang, Amnesty said.
It said China was by far the planet's busiest executioner in 1999 with an official tally of 1,263 people put to death -- more than the rest of the world combined. But the group said that was only a fraction of the actual total.
Diplomats said the torrid pace of executions put the 2001 tally on track to match the 4,367 people executed under the previous nationwide Strike Hard campaign, in 1996.
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