ReutersChina has executed a person discovered responsible of killing at the very least 35 individuals in a automobile assault in November, in what’s considered the deadliest assault within the nation for a decade.
Fan Weiqiu, 62, injured dozens extra when he drove his car into people exercising outdoors a stadium within the southern metropolis of Zhuhai.
State media mentioned a second man was executed for a separate assault that got here days later. Xu Jiajin, 21, killed eight individuals in a stabbing spree at his university within the jap metropolis of Wuxi.
Authorities mentioned Fan was pushed by “dissatisfaction” over how his property had been divided following his divorce, whereas Xu carried out his assault after “failing to acquire his diploma on account of poor examination outcomes”.
Fan was detained on the scene on 11 November, the place police mentioned he was discovered with self-inflicted wounds.
In December, he was discovered responsible of “endangering public security”, with the Zhuhai Intermediate Folks’s Courtroom describing his motive as “extraordinarily vile” and the strategies used “notably merciless”.
His execution on Monday comes lower than a month after the courtroom sentenced him to demise.
Within the case of Xu, police mentioned he confessed to his crime “with out hesitation” on 16 November. He was sentenced to demise on 17 December, with the courtroom listening to that the circumstances of his crime have been “notably unhealthy” and “extraordinarily severe”.
Human rights teams imagine China is the world’s main executioner, killing hundreds of individuals yearly. The nation doesn’t launch particulars about its use of the demise penalty, so dependable numbers are unavailable.
China has been grappling with a spate of public violence, with many attackers believed to have been spurred by a want to “take revenge on society” – the place perpetrators goal strangers over their private grievances.
The variety of such assaults throughout China reached 19 in 2024.
Inside days of the Zhuhai and Wuxi assaults, a man drove into a crowd of children and parents outdoors a main college in Changde metropolis, injuring 30.
Authorities mentioned the person, Huang Wen, wished to vent his anger after coping with funding losses and household battle.
Huang was handed a suspended death sentence final month, which could possibly be commuted to life imprisonment if he doesn’t commit one other crime within the subsequent two years.
Analysts earlier told the BBC that the string of mass killings raised questions on how individuals in China have been coping with varied sources of stress, such because the nation’s sluggish economic system.
“The tensions do appear to be constructing, and it would not seem like there’s any means it’ll ease up within the close to future,” says George Magnus, an economist at Oxford College’s China Centre.
