Three sentenced to death on hunger strike: the failure of Chinese justice
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Three people sentenced to death have been on hunger strike since 23 February in Jiangxi to attract attention to the injustice of their sentence. They argue that there is no evidence of their guilt and that their confessions were extracted under torture. Their protest comes just as the UN in Geneva launches a new campaign for the abolition of the death penalty.
Fang Chunping, Huang Zhiqiang and Cheng Fagen have been in prison for 7 years in Jingdezhen (Jiangxi). Along with another convicted Cheng Lihei, they were arrested in Leping (Jiangxi), in 2002 and sentenced in July 2003 for "murder, robbery and rape" over incidents that occurred in '99 and 2000. Their conviction was rejected on appeal in 2004 by the High Court of Jiangxi, that noted inconsistencies in the confessions and inconsistencies in the evidence. But in November 2004, the Jiangxi Interim Court, without introducing any new investigations or new evidence, reaffirmed the death sentence.
According to the lawyers of the three and their relatives, all 4 prisoners have good alibis and police have not been able to find compatible DNA at the crime scene. The four claim that their confessions were obtained after police beat them for long hours, hanging them from the ceiling for several days and nights, forcing them to stay on my knees until they dropped, leaving them without food, water or sleep.
Teng Biao, a lawyer and professor in defence of human rights, said that the police were under pressure to find someone to charge. He himself recalls having attended at least five other cases in which defendants were convicted on confessions extracted through torture.
The hunger strike of three convicts, comes as the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty closed in Geneva. The final document of the meeting, wanted by the UN, calls for the universal abolition of capital punishment.
In the 1970s only 23 countries had abolished the death penalty; today there are 139. In 2008, a total of 2390 death sentences were carried out. China holds the record with 1718. Recently the People's Supreme Court said it wanted to impose the capital punishment only for heinous cases or crimes against the state. But the use of torture and violence by Chinese police - also confirmed by the UN investigation - shows huge holes in Beijing’s justice system.
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07/02/2019 17:28
