A Chinese man who killed a village official with a nail gun after his home was forcibly demolished was executed yesterday, a court said, despite a public outcry over his condemnation.
Jia Jinglong (賈敬龍) killed his village chief in Hebei Province last year, state media said.
Lawyers and commentators had called for Jia’s sentence to be commuted on the grounds that the demolition of his home by local officials constituted extenuating circumstances, and because he confessed to the crime.
Photo: AP
The house was pulled down just weeks before his wedding day in 2013, China’s Global Times reported previously, adding he was beaten and denied compensation.
Yesterday’s edition of the paper carried another report on legal experts urging the execution be halted in a letter to China’s Supreme People’s Court, citing “mismanagement” in rural areas and inadequate judicial procedures.
However, the Intermediate People’s Court in Shijiazhuang said on a verified social media account: “The execution of the murderer Jia Jinglong has been carried out.”
Before being put to death Jia met his relatives “according to the law,” Xinhua news agency said.
Neither the court nor Xinhua specified how Jia was killed, but executions in China are believed generally to be carried out by lethal injection.
Jia’s case had sparked widespread debate on Chinese social media. Hundreds signed an online petition calling for the death sentence to be revoked.
Violent land seizures and forced evictions of villagers by local officials clearing the way for development projects are a major source of social resentment in China, sometimes triggering unrest.
“The reason why this aroused such an intense social reaction is that in the background many people deeply resent forced relocations, so much so that it provoked profound concern,” Chinese media commentator Shi Susi said on Weibo.
“Executing Jia Jinglong is easy, but pacifying this feeling that’s been accumulating for years on end can’t be done overnight. Speed up China’s reform, rule of law, and equality,” Shi said.
One well-liked comment responding to his post alleged that the real reason Jia was executed was because the son of the village official he killed had become the local party secretary.
China is widely believed to lead the world in executions with estimates of a few thousand every year.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese