Should all drugs smugglers be executed?
News from Chinese media
British citizen Akmal Shaikh was recently executed in China. I compared reports from both the British media and from Chinese media, and found both of them had missed some crucial points worth discussion.
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British citizen Akmal Shaikh was executed in China under the charge of carrying up to 4,030 grams of heroin.
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Controversial point
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Watching media reports from the two nations, they each have their own point of view about one particular issue: his mental heath situation.
The British Foreign Office condemned China’s court had not given Mr Shaikh a mental health evaluation.
While China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) responded that the documents provided could not prove Akmal had the possibility to have a mental disorder, nor did members of his family have a history of mental disease, therefore he was not entitled to ask for a mental health assessment.
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There is no reason to cast doubt on Akmal Shaikh’s mental status. the SPC said.
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what Chinese media miss out
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Media in mainland missed many points they could have discussed with the Chinese audience, Jessica Chinese Service would like to discuss the underlying issues.
1 Even the report on BBC Chinese Service did not mention whether Akmal should be entitled to mental illness evaluation.
Jessica Chinese Service will ask:Is this only the difference between the Chinese law and British law? Is the Chinese law being too harsh or British law being too soft?
2 There is no Chinese media discussion about why Britain thinks it is”unacceptable”.
Jessica Chinese Service will ask:Why many parties, such as European Union and UN all condemns the execution of Akmal Shaikh? How would British law respond in the same case?
3 Many countries have abolished the death penalty, including Britain. In 2008, however, around 72% of the world’s total executions took place in China.
Jessica Chinese Service will ask:Considering Chinese population is only 20.1% of world’s population, what can you see from this figure? Between 80-95% of the population in China support death sentence, does high death penalty rate necessarily result in a low crime rate society or not?
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News from British media
News from British media
what British media miss out
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Both Chinese and British people showed their anger about this judgement on Internet, but for different reasons.
The ordinary Chinese people were angry about Akmal’s drug smuggling behaviour, many people compared his crime with the Opium War on the Internet.
I recall when Michael Fay was arrested and caned in Singapore for graffiti in 1994, many people in the US were also outraged and called Singaporean laws barbaric.
Considering the differences which exist in different legal systems, should government also share the responsibility to inform its citizen the different local law of their destination country? Such as trafficking more than 50 grams of heroin are punishable by death in China, or graffiti is illegal in Singapore.
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Suggestions
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Jessica Chinese Service will take this opportunity to raise questions above, and encourage my Chinese readers to review the legal system in China and human rights issue.
Noticing many Chinese do not understand why British government are ouraged about this case, I will put more effort on explaining WHY and try to minimise the misunderstand between these two different legal system and people’s way of thinking.
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