Activists Use Olympics, Press China on Executions

International groups have estimated that it executes between 5,000 and 12,000 people a year, far more than any other country.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups have urged China to move to end the death penalty in its Olympics year, adding to the many lobbying campaigns aimed at the Beijing Summer Games.

China does not release statistics on executions, but international groups have estimated that it executes between 5,000 and 12,000 people a year, far more than any other country.

In a letter to China's national parliament issued on Wednesday, the France-based World Coalition Against the Death Penalty called on Beijing to "take concrete measures" to end judicial executions, including a moratorium.

"A positive legacy for the Beijing Olympics can only be achieved when China's world record of executions comes to an end," the coalition said in an open letter to China's National People's Congress, which holds its annual session in March.

The dozens of European, Asian and American groups backing the open letter include the U.S. National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers and Penal Reform International, according to a copy on the World Coalition's Web site (www.worldcoalition.org).

The petition is unlikely to prompt action from China, which faces a wave of international campaigns using the Olympics to pressure it on human rights, its role in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, Myanmar and Tibet.

China has repeatedly said it wants the Games to avoid politics and has also said it has become more careful in applying the death penalty.

Last year, the Supreme People's Court took back its power of final approval on death penalties, relinquished to provincial high courts in a crime-fighting campaign in the 1980s.

Chinese media have said the number of people sentenced to death by Chinese courts fell significantly in 2007.

But the World Coalition said it would be possible to assess the reforms only if China makes its statistics on executions public.