MCLC: tv special on executions stirs debate

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: tv special on executions stirs debate
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (3/1/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/world/asia/chinese-tv-special-on-executio
ns-stirs-debate.html

Chinese TV Special on Executions Stirs Debate
By ANDREW JACOBS

In a live television broadcast that was part morality play, part
propaganda tour de force, the Chinese government on Friday displayed four
foreign drug traffickers, convicted of murdering 13 Chinese sailors two
years ago, being led to their executions.

Although the two-hour TV special came to an end shortly before the men
were put to death by lethal injection, the program became an instantly
polarizing sensation, with viewers divided on whether the program was a
crass exercise in blood lust or a long-awaited catharsis for a nation
outraged by the killings. Some critics said the program recalled the days
when condemned prisoners were paraded through the streets before being
shot.

“Rather than showcasing rule of law, the program displayed state control
over human life in a manner designed to attract gawkers,” Han Youyi, a
professor of criminal law, wrote on his microblog account.
“State-administered violence is no loftier than criminal violence.”

One prominent rights lawyer insisted that the show, on the national
broadcaster CCTV, violated the Chinese criminal code by making a spectacle
of the condemned.

The program largely focused on Naw Kham, the Burmese ringleader of a drug
gang, who was accused of orchestrating the brutal execution of the sailors
in October 2011 as they sailed down the Mekong in Myanmar and then making
the crime appear to be drug-related. In China, a nation where millions
work overseas, often in dangerous corners of the world, the killings were
especially unsettling.

Last April, six men accused in the killings, including Naw Kham, were
apprehended in Laos by a team of investigators that included officers from
China, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Naw Kham and his accomplices were
convicted last November during a two-day trial in the southwestern Chinese
province of Yunnan. The men, including a Laotian, a Thai and a third of
“unknown nationality,” reportedly confessed to the crime. The two men who
escaped execution received long prison terms.

Last month, a Chinese public security official told a newspaper that
Beijing had considered using a drone strike to kill Naw Kham but later
decided to capture him alive.

Given the considerable viewership on Friday, that decision proved to be a
good one.

The program included interviews with triumphant police officers, images of
the condemned men in shackles and the sort of blustery talking heads that
would be familiar to American cable television audiences. The graphic
elements that flashed behind the CCTV news anchor included the tagline
“Kill the Kingpin.”

In one segment, Liu Yuejin, director general of the central government’s
Narcotics Control Bureau, cast the executions as not only an important
victory for a newly confident China but also for ethnic Chinese across the
globe. “In the past, overseas Chinese dared not say they were of Chinese
origin,” he said. “Now they can hold their heads high and be themselves.”

Supporters of the program were many, and enthusiastic. One blogger
suggested that death by lethal injection was too lenient, adding “These
beasts should be pulled apart by vehicles.”

Shortly before the men were led from their cells to the van that would
take them to the death chamber, a reporter asked Naw Kham to talk about
his family and then taunted him by showing photos of the victims’ grieving
relatives. “I want to raise my children and have them educated,” Naw Kham
said with a faint smile on his face. “I don’t want to die.”

Shi Da and Patrick Zuo contributed research.