Mobile death chambers take capital punishment on the road
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China is innovating in the market of death with a fleet of execution buses in which convicts are efficiently and cleanly put to death by lethal injection.
The mobile death chamber means executions can be ordered and carried out by courts in towns and villages around a particular province, with executioners and medical staff shuttling between different jurisdictions. Authorities say the initiative is a deterrent against crime.
"First, we established there was demand for execution vehicles. Then we designed the vehicles and applied to the government for certification. This procedure is a must," said Mr Zhang, from the marketing department of Jinguan Auto – a Chongqing-based maker of ambulances, police lorries, bulletproof shields and armour-plated limos. Mr Zhang, who did not wish to give his first name, said the execution bus is a refitted 17-seater minibus which is seven metres long. So far the company had sold 10 of the vehicles.
Viewed in the online catalogue, the bus looks innocuous enough from the outside. Mr Zhang explained how criminals are tied hand and foot to a stretcher at the back, then injected with a cocktail of lethal toxins. The bus also features a video monitoring system, to ensure that executions comply with state rules, he explained.
The execution bus also makes it easier to use organs from prisoners for transplants, with doctors and nurses on hand to make sure they are transferred swiftly. This practice has been attacked as inhumane, although the Chinese government insists it takes place with the permission of the donors and their families.
China executes more prisoners than any other country, and non-violent crimes such as corruption and tax fraud, as well as the traditional capital offences such as murder, are among 68 crimes that carry the death penalty.
Before creation of the buses, the condemned were executed by being shot in the back of the head, but executioners were often forced to wear rubber boots, because of the large amount of blood involved in shootings, and occasionally prisoners had to be shot several times before finally dying.
One reason why executioners wanted a different method was because many of those killed were drug traffickers, and were said to have HIV/Aids. Executioners said they were worried they would become infected by spraying blood.
"Lethal injection reduces the pain and fear of the condemned. It is a more humane way to die," Mou Ruijin, associate professor of the Law School of Northeast University, told the Xinhua news agency after the province of Liaoning became the latest to switch to lethal injections.
The makers of the van say sales are steady, and urge any foreign governments interested to get in touch.
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Comments
Will this be the next step for those who do not obey the law, or fail to obtain a TV license? No doubt, the videos will appear on You Tube, just like Saddam.
I think these vehicles were manufactured for the Bush/Cheney regime, but the company was delayed in production. They could make a roaring trade with a Torturemobile, USA would buy them, and they could drive them around Britain, Poland and Romania (Britain would deny all knowledge, of course!).
I'm sure there will be plenty of other buyers, Mugabe just placed a large order, I hear they are very popular in the Sudan.
China will never improve their civil rights while the western world buys all their plastic trinkets. Unfortunately money talks, when is any civilised country going to stand up and criticise the human rights abuses in China, Israel or Saudi Arabia?
Now and then, too, other unlucky souls had their heads mounted up on the bridges for everyone to see, and set an example. Not that I agree with the newfangled Chinese method...I just want to set the
record straight when people use the word "civilised" or "uncivilised".
It would also seem that you have not been paying much attention to the news in the last 30 odd years, otherwise you might recall the many miscarriages of justice perpetrated in this country. Many of these were down to the stupidity or incompetence of the police and because they knew that had the, right man.
And just one other small point, handing out the death penalty for a wide range of crimes is just plan dumb and would only make things worse, remember the saying, you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb?
Perhaps you should have a chat to nurse about upping your meds....
What a contrast to Mr Pierpoint (father and son) leaving their cosy North Manchester pub, travelling by train to a drab provincial prison, testing rope, lever and sandbags, and then having to wait until the next morning before putting their skills to practical use.
And this latest Chinese efficiency makes Britain's cottage industry of building and exporting gallows to newly independent ex-colonies anxious to preserve the imperial rule of law seem barbarously anachronistic.
But every entrepreneurial process leaves room for improvement.
There is need for an extended minivan with an additional video.
An extended minivan could comfortably house the recipient of the condemned man's kidneys or liver. He could lie at his ease and view by video the arrival of the donor. For an extra fee, he could enter the other chamber of the van, exchange a few grateful words with the condemned and be assured of his willing participation before returning to his chamber, lying back and submitting to anaesthetic. Competitions between surgeons on the speed with which they can extract and insert organs might be arranged on a global basis for the benefit for all mankind. When word of this extraordinary humane procedure spreads abroad among affluent people, Jinguan Auto of Chongquin will design ever more comfortable minivans, thus contributing to greater employment of Chinese artisans and to the general Chinese economy; foreign travel agencies will arrange itineraries to coincide with executions in the most remote rural areas of the People's Republic; and governments worldwide can collect ever more exorbitant taxes from their affluent citizens' increased air travel.
Only a radical shift of drug policy, namely decriminalization of all drugs, will we start to deal with the drug issue more rationally and humanely. Otherwise, we are not much different from China.
Raffi Balian
Canada
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