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While the methods employed by the PRC are, ahem, somewhat more pragmatic than those utilised in most other countries still having the death penalty, it is mere
by lb1lf 6y ago
While the methods employed by the PRC are, ahem, somewhat more pragmatic than those utilised in most other countries still having the death penalty, it is mere nuance - the state murdering its own citizens is a practice which should have been long abandoned - whether the state is Iran, the US, China, Saudi Arabia or any of the handful of others still having the statute on its books.
- toxik 6y agoCapital punishment is one thing, blowing people’s brains out for dissenting is another.
- sascha_sl 6y agoThat's assuming you have a functioning judiciary system. At 99.9% they do become the same.
- jahnu 6y agoWhile Japan's legal system is certainly deserving of criticism, who's isn't?, this stat is thrown around without any understanding of what it really means. What is the conviction rate in your country of residence? What does conviction rate actually mean in the context of the legal process in your country and Japan? If you don't know the detailed answers to those questions I suggest not making such grand claims about equivalence. Here is a short radio episode explaining this topic. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3s5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3s5 Edit for clarity: The parent has for some reason edited their comment and now it looks like I was defending China's rate in my reply. They originally made an equivalence claim between Japan and China and I wanted to add information explaining that this stat doesn't necessarily mean what it's often at first glance interpreted to mean. The parent then replied to my comment with a reply that suggests their edit was in fact malicious. But I can't be sure of that.
- dan-robertson 6y agoJapan has quite a weird judicial system. I think from a western, common law eye, it probably seems worse. In the west a prosecutor will usually bring a case if they think there is a reasonable chance of getting a conviction whereas in Japan, a prosecutor will only bring a case if they are very convinced that there will be a conviction. I think there is also some societal pressure on judges to not find people innocent, which seems pretty bad to me. Also the police basically want to extract signed confessions out of people and may often keep suspects in custody for long periods of time (without access to a lawyer or anyone else) to extract confessions. Obviously this sounds bad so in the interest of balance, let me point out that there are many problems with the US system but they are out of this comment.
- CyanBird 6y agoI personally prefer the bullet to chemical death sentence, at least I am not coerced to pay for the bullet The sword as they use in Saudi Arabia also seems rather brutish but certainly less painful
- ekianjo 6y agoI don't think most people who get death penalty in the West get it for being against the State or for their political opinions.
- croes 6y agoDoes it matter why you get killed? No one has the right to kill another person unless someone's life is in acute danger.
- endymi0n 6y agoWhile I don‘t share this train of thought, it‘s certainly easier to argue from several philosophical and religious backgrounds for a death sentence for a murderer than for a protester.
- ekianjo 6y ago> No one has the right to kill another person unless someone's life is in acute danger. That's a completely arbitrary right. Depending on wherever you are from it's not some kind of shared obviousness at all. Some countries actually execute people for possessing hard drugs (which I don't agree with, but that's the reality: don't assume 'rights' are universal). Most of these countries are in South East Asia and have suffered in the opium days so there's a history behind that decision too.
- faeyanpiraat 6y agoI think the key is whether one accepts that there is no free will. If you did, then executing someone solely for whatever they did makes no sense, because: 1. If you were in their place, you would've done the same thing (no free will). 2. You can imagine what you'd feel if in their place you'd hear the sentence, (then empathy would kick in). 3. “No man is completely useless; he can always serve as a bad example.” Then in an ideal world, we would have the knowledge, and resources to figure out what went wrong, and "fix" the abusive behaviour in the subject, making them a happy and productive member of society again. Of course we are living in an imperfect world, so this is not yet a viable solution..
- rualca 6y agoArbitrarily assassinating dissidents and politically inconvenient targets goes way beyond a mere issue of capital punishment.