China -- the world's leading executioner of prisoners -- should reduce the number of death sentences it carries out but cannot abolish capital punishment altogether, the country's top legal bodies say.
In a joint statement released late on Sunday, the Supreme People's Court, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Justice and the country's top prosecutor also said condemned prisoners should not be paraded through the streets and suspects should not be tortured.
China is believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined. Amnesty International says China executed at least 1,770 people in 2005 -- about 80 percent of the world's total.
The true number is thought to be many times higher.
The London-based Amnesty has cited a senior member of China's National People's Congress as saying some 10,000 people are executed each year.
"Our country still cannot abolish the death penalty but should gradually reduce its application," the document said.
"But where there is a possibility someone should not be executed, then without exception the person should not be killed," it said.
Along with crimes such as murder, rape and drug smuggling, the death sentence has also been imposed in nonviolent cases such as tax evasion and corruption.
China has sought to tighten its rules on the application of the death penalty following a series of high-profile cases involving wrongful convictions and torture. Rules enacted last year restored a requirement that all executions first be approved by the Supreme People's Court, something that had been waived amid the ongoing "strike hard" anti-crime campaign.
Chinese police are often accused of torturing suspects into making confessions, and the document said it was wrong to use statements or confessions obtained through torture or threats "as the basis for a case."
Officials were obligated to "ensure crime suspects and defendants can fully exercise their rights to defense and other procedural rights," the statement said.
The document said police must be more thorough and obey the laws in identifying and collecting evidence.
VIOLENT DEMONSTRATION
In other developments, thousands of farmers and laid-off workers rioted in Hunan Province on Friday, attacking police and smashing squad cars, a local official said yesterday.
Nine police cars were burnt during the riot, in which 20,000 people clashed with about 1,000 police armed with guns and electric cattle prods, the official said.
"They did it because they were not satisfied with some government behavior," the official, surnamed Tan, said by telephone from Lingling District, which belongs to Yongzhou City.
"They were also unhappy about official corruption," Tan said.
The overseas human-rights Web site Boxun (www.boxun.com) said the riot was sparked by dissatisfaction with rising public transport costs.
The site, which is critical of the government, is blocked in China.
The Hunan official said scores of the rioters had been arrested. The government was tracking down the organizers, she said.
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