Street vendor Xia Junfeng, as depicted on the Internet

Published in collaboration with Offbeat China.

“I won’t comply!”

Those were reportedly the last words of Xia Junfeng, a street vendor who ran a kebab stall in Shenyang, Liaoning province, just before his excution on Wednesday. Four years ago, in what he insisted was an act of self-defense, Xia stabbed to death two urban city management enforcement officers — chengguan — and wounded another. Most Chinese, including many law professionals, believed Xia should have been charged with “excessive defense,” but after four years of appeals, the Supreme Court finally approved his death sentence.

In a country where the use of capital punishment is widely supported, Xia’s case has revived a heated public discussion of whether it’s time for China to abolish capital punishment. Many pointed out that capital punishment has become China’s new class divide – the death penalty is a “privilege” reserved for the powerless.

Much of the outcry can be attributed to the fact that Xia was a street vendor, and the two men he killed were chengguan, a much hated group known for abusive tactics. It’s not uncommon to hear about street vendors who have been beaten to death by chengguan officers. But when street vendors are the victims, the death sentence is seldom, if at all, applied. For example, two years ago, also in Liaoning province, three chengguan officers who beat an elderly man to death were sentenced to 11 years and 3 years in prison, respectively.

Another reason for the public’s anger is a strong sense of judicial inequality. Many compared Xia with Gu Kailai, wife of politician Bo Xilai, who murdered a British businessman. Her death sentence was “suspended,” which more likely than not means she’ll get out on medical parole sooner than later.

“If capital punishment punishes only the people, then it’s better to be abolished,” commented netizen丁来峰. “I suggest China abolish capital punishment. If you are an official, you will be sentenced to suspended life at most, even after you take hundreds of millions in bribes. If you are an official, you will be sentenced to suspended death even after you’ve murdered a foreigner. If you are an official, even a lowest ranking one, you will be okay after beating someone to death because your boss will use taxpayers’ money to pay the victim’s family off. But if you are just an ordinary citizen and you kill out of self-defense, then you will be executed.”

Many of China’s supporters of capital punishment still believe that the death penalty is necessary and point to its use in punishing corrupt officials. But Xia’s case has prompted even staunch capital punishment advocates to rethink their reasoning.

“I used to support limiting capital punishment — not full revoking of it — because I hoped that the use of capital punishment culd curb corruption,” explained 何兵, associate dean of the law school at China University of Political Science and Law. “But Liu Zhijun [former head of China Rail, charged with corruption] was exempt from death; Gu Kailai was exempt from death; while Zeng Chengjie [developer charged with a pony scheme] was executed; Xia Junfeng was executed… if the death penalty doesn’t apply to officials, it shouldn’t apply to the people, either. Call for a complete dismantling of capital punishment.”

Netizen 桃谷散人 held the same view: “I once opposed abolishing capital punishment in China, naively believing that the government would use the death penalty to punish the corrupt and save the people. But the reality is that none of the corrupt is executed, only ordinary people.” Another netizen, 谭_zoe崽崽, added, “Now I realize that in an unfair judicial system that rules by the wills of officials, capital punishment must be dismantled!”

Alia is the founder of Offbeat China, where this post also appears.

Tang Hui, the mother of an 11-year-old kidnapping, rape, and forced prostitution victim, was sent to a reeducation through labor camp last August for daring to raise her voice to say her daugther’s rapists got off easy. The decision sparked outrage, and though Tang only served one week of her 18-month sentence, her case may have been the impetus behind proposed reforms to dissolve forced labor camps.

This morning, a high court in Hunan province went a step further by ordering the Yongzhou municipal re-education through labor commission to pay Tang 2,941 yuan in compensation, reports Xinhua. The sum may not seem like much, but consider that just in April, a court in Yongzhou denied her request for compensation and an apology.

Oh, and that apology? She got that too, on July 2. Reports AFP:

A Chinese police chief who sentenced the mother of a rape and kidnap victim to hard labour apologised to her during a court hearing on Tuesday over compensation, she said.

…The head of the committee that sentenced her admitted in court on Tuesday that its action was “not appropriate”, Tang said by phone.

She said that Jiang Jianxiang told the court he “had not taken into account humanitarian care and sent me to labour camp, which was not appropriate … so he gave an apology.”

That day, the court announced on Sina Weibo that it would “issue a decision at a future date.”

That date was today, apparently. The results are good.