Hell on Wheels

(Keywords: politics, China, death penalty, betting on the wrong horse )

More reason to despise the chinese government from Amnesty International.

In an effort to improve cost-efficiency, Chinese provincial authorities are beginning to introduce so-called mobile execution vans. These are intended to replace the traditional method of execution by firing squad in which prisoners are taken to an execution ground and made to kneel with hands cuffed before being shot in the head. Officials in Yunnan province explained that only four people are required to carry out the execution in the mobile vans: the executioner, one member of the court, one official from the procuratorate and one forensic doctor.

Eighteen mobile executions vans, converted 24-seater buses, are being distributed to all intermediate courts and one high court in Yunnan province. The windowless execution chamber at the back contains a metal bed on which the prisoner is strapped down. Once the needle is attached by the doctor, an act which breaches international medical ethics, a police officer presses a button and an automatic syringe inserts the lethal drug into the prisoner's vein. The execution can be watched on a video monitor next to the driver’s seat and can be recorded if required.

The whole thing is eerily efficient. The vans are really mobile surgical hospitals and the victims' organs are removed for sale. According to the Toronto Sun, "China has long sold the organs of criminals on death row, but only recently has it been learned that of some 6,000 Falun Gong believers in Sujiatun death camp in the Northeastern city of Shenyang, none has emerged alive. An estimated 3,000 inmates have had organs removed and their bodies cremated."

Yet, George W. Bush told chinese President Hu, "This was unfortunate," when a Falun Gong protester shouted at Hu about his killing spree.

Who's side are we on, here?

--Wisco