2 steps forward, 2 steps back: China Edition (aka Human Rights: UR Doin It Wrong)

by Shaker TheDeviantE, (but we're all friends here, call me Deviant), a queer, poly, atheist genderqueer trans boy, who is: infrequently writing a blog about "normal" society, becoming a social worker, making music, and otherwise trying to muddle on through.

[Trigger warning due to violence against women.]

Today's guest post comes to you care of the Chinese government. And by "care of," I of course mean "in righteously fucking pissed response to."

Hey, did you know that China kills a lot of people? It's true. According to a New York Times article, the U.S. executed 37 people last year. We are considered (rightly) to be one of the most Death Penalty-licious countries of Europe AND the Americas (North, South, and Central). Here's a color coded map* for reference. However, compared to China… Hoo boy.

Last year (during the Olympics, while they were trying to cut back on the executions because it makes the international community cranky), China executed 1,700+ people. 2 years previously? 8,000.

(In case you're wondering, China ranked third in 2008 behind Iran and Saudi Arabia for per capita executions at a little over 1 execution per million population—keep in mind that's when they had the Olympics around. In 2006, with at least 8000 executions, their per capita executions were 5.9/million)

But, good news! They are trying to scale it back and take some of the corruption out of the system.

One of the ways they've done that is to acknowledge "mitigating factors" (such as "crimes of passion").

Now, it seems probable that people convicted of tax evasion (why yes, China does indeed execute people for that) are still pretty much up shit creek (it is rather hard to argue anything but premeditation for tax evasion after all), but it looks like murderers should have some reason to rejoice.

Especially if they decide to kill women (most especially wives, girlfriends, that sort of relationship).

For an eye opening look into the reasoning of their high court, we get the case of:

a man surnamed Shao who was convicted of killing his girlfriend after learning of her affair. Mr. Zhang said the high court suspended Mr. Shao's death sentence because he showed regret and promised compensation for the woman's family.

According to Zhang Jun, Vice President of the Supreme People's Court:

Other mitigating factors were that the victim's behavior may have provoked the boyfriend's violence and in the end, Mr. Zhang added, the crime did not "have a major social impact."

'Cause killing women willy nilly clearly has no social impact, women being murdered by men who get angry is totally not systemic**: Just pay the family back in lost wages or something and it's like it never even happened! Seriously. How does one even "compensate" the family monetarily??? I wonder, what did the court decided his dead girlfriend was "worth"?

In any case, I really can't help but applaud China. 'Cause if there's one thing a society needs, it's more protection for misogynist assholes. As we all know, sexists are one of the last groups of people it's ok to be bigoted towards (along with gamers*** and white men. Hah.). I mean, if you're sexist, you can't hardly get a job writing articles or being an actor or a vice president of the highest court in your country, or really anything in the public sphere at all, and people always chase you out of town with pitchforks and such. So really, I do support helping make sure that sexists aren't blamed when their victims make them cranky…and then the sexist jackasses go and…kill them?

After all, whenever someone makes ME cranky I always..... oh wait no I don't.

Yeah. Way to rock, China.****

PS: Death Penalty? Wrong. Wrong, wrongity wrong. I in no way think that Mr. Shao or others like him should get the death penalty. But, giving him a reprieve because the deaths of women have no "social impact"? ALSO WRONG.

DoublePlus PS: It is worth noting that this article TOTALLY takes a "we're just reporting the facts, questions are for suckers" approach to it all. No questioning this policy, or that it (or specifically, the example) is rooted in misogyny. Also, the juxtaposition of this anecdote with talking about how "human rights groups welcomed the announcement" totally squicks me out. If I were a researcher at Human Rights Watch, you better be damn certain that I'd find it totally problematic if a government decided that murder of women was less evil than tax evasion. I mean, women are also human.

Right?

----------------------------------

* The map was taken from here, which also seems to include graphs of per capita executions and various other death penalty related stats.

** And lest anyone get the wrong point here: The U.S.? Same systemic murders, England? Same fucking systemic disregard for women. This is not a uniquely Chinese problem. This is not a uniquely "third world" problem. This is not a problem based in the culture of "non-white" peoples. This is not a uniquely ANYBODY problem. It's everyone. It's everywhere. It's all of us.

*** Sorry, I've recently been reading that glorious "Fat Princess" thread.

**** (small print terms apply): Your results may vary, check your local listings and regulations for values of "rock."