Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Capital Punishment for prostitutes in China?

Biasa lah, I was in my regular watering hole last evening when it happened.

Chris Will and Lawrence were talking civilly for a while on various subjects including Malaysian politics, education for the young and racial issues. No problem.

Then out of nowhere, (now here), Chris Will started to say that they execute prostitutes in China. Lawrence said no way. Shortly, volume increased and it became quite a heated argument. I mean heated!

"You mean they kill the prostitutes now? Still?" "Yes, they do"

"You mad ahr, how can they kill the prostitutes. What kind of law do they have" "Lawrence, it is called capital punishment, can you understand"

"No lah, then women will be dying by the hundreds" "Yah, that's their law and they enforce it"

"You must be crazy, I am a Chinese (malaysian) and I have being to China for 11 years now" "Yah, as a tourist, what do you know"

"What do you know, you are a gweilo" "Lawrence, you go to China as a tourist, I stayed there for one and a half years."

"You were staying in Hong Kong" "No, that was a different time. I stayed in mainland China for one and a half years. I know"

Well, more of the same for a total of approximate 20 minutes of very loud talking.

Okay people, now let's get to the real thang.

The People's Republic of China currently uses capital punishment for many crimes, from tax evasion and political corruption to racketeering and murder. China executed more people annually than any other nation; in 2007 it executed at least 50 percent more people than Iran, the country with the second-highest number of executions. China's use of capital punishment for minor crimes is often cited as one of the many human rights violations of the Chinese government.

The death penalty is not used in Hong Kong or Macau under the "one country, two systems" principle.

An interesting point here.

In the past the government collected a "bullet fee" (子弹费) from the relatives of the condemned.

No prostitution was mentioned. Okay, let's check that out as well.

Shortly after taking power in 1949, the Communist Party of China embarked upon a series of campaigns that purportedly eradicated prostitution from mainland China by the early 1960s. Since the loosening of government controls over society in the early 1980s, prostitution in mainland China not only has become more visible, but can now be found throughout both urban and rural areas. In spite of government efforts, prostitution has now developed to the extent that it comprises an industry, one that involves a great number of people and produces a considerable economic output. Prostitution has also become associated with a number of problems, including organized crime, government corruption and sexually transmitted diseases.

For example, a Communist Party official who was a top provincial campaigner against corruption was sacked after he was caught in a hotel room with a Russian prostitute. Annually, thousands of Russian women end up as prostitutes in China.

While the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has always taken a hard line on organisers of prostitution, it has vacillated in its legal treatment of prostitutes, treating them sometimes as criminals and sometimes as behaving with misconduct. Since the reappearance of prostitution in the 1980s, government authorities have responded by first using the legal system, that is, the daily operations of institutions like courts and police. Second, they have relied on police-led campaigns, clearly delineated periods of intense public activity, as a form of social discipline. Despite lobbying by international NGOs and overseas commentators, there is not much support for legalisation of the sex sector by the public, social organizations or the government of the PRC.

So now we know they don't kill those poor women.

Maybe Chris Will was conned by a Chinese prostitute who wanted some sympathy money from him.

By the way, do you know that the Chinese police and army personnel look like this?




























.

Happy April 01 Day!


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