Thousands watched at a packed stadium in southern China this past weekend as 10 people were publicly sentenced to death and then promptly taken away to be executed.
The 10 Chinese convicts were found guilty of mostly drug-related crimes by China’s criminal justice system, which has a 99.9 percent conviction rate. At a sports stadium in Lufeng, Guangdong Province, they were condemned to death before thousands of onlookers, including young school children, The Paper reported.
Lufeng has been the focus of a major State Anti-Drug Committee war on drugs, according to the South China Morning Post. Thousands of Chinese law enforcement officials raided a local village three years ago, seizing 3 metric tons of crystal meth and arresting around 200 people.
At a similar conviction conference this past summer, 18 people were convicted of drug-related crimes. Thirteen convicts were sentenced to death, and eight were executed immediately afterwards.
Five drug criminals were sentenced to death and executed after another meeting in Lufeng in 2015.
China does not publicly release information on the number of people executed each year, but China is believed to execute more people each year than the rest of the world combined, Amnesty International revealed in a report released earlier this year. The human rights organization asserted that while 1,032 people were executed in 23 countries (excluding China) last year, China sentenced thousands to death and executed them.
Thousands Watch As China Sentences 10 To Death In A Packed Sports Stadium