Events | 2009.12.28
Fury at China over refusal to pardon Briton
Human rights record condemned as UK makes last-ditch clemency appeal
China faces fierce condemnation over its human rights record after refusing to grant a reprieve from the death penalty for a British man who his supporters say has mental health problems.
The Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis tonight made a last-ditch attempt to prevent the execution of Akmal Shaikh, 53, making Britain\'s opposition to the death penalty clear in a phone call to his Chinese counterpart.
A Downing Street spokesman said the British government had done "everything within its power" to secure a fair trial and clemency on the death penalty for Shaikh, who was found guilty of drug smuggling in 2007. "The prime minister has intervened personally on a number of occasions: he has raised the case with premier Wen, most recently at the Copenhagen summit; and has written several times to President Hu," he said.
Shaikh is due to be executed at 10.30am local time (2.30am British time) for smuggling 4kg (8.8lb) of heroin.
MPs criticised China\'s actions, but said the British government had done all it could in its appeals for a stay of execution. Ken Purchase, a former Foreign Office ministerial aide and a member of the foreign affairs select committee, called China\'s actions "absolutely regrettable", adding that the country was trying to position itself in the mainstream of international affairs while persisting with "barbaric actions".
Gisela Stuart, a former Labour minister who also sits on the foreign affairs select committee, said: "When it comes to questions of human rights in China there is still the most enormous gap."
Shaikh was informed of his death sentence today when British consular officials accompanied two of his cousins, Soohail Shaikh and Nasir Shaikh, to the secure hospital in Urumqi where he was being held.
In a statement after the meeting, they said: "He was obviously very upset on hearing from us of the sentence that was passed. We strongly feel that he\'s not rational and he needs medication.
"We feel a pardon would allow Akmal to get the medical assistance he needs as well as the healing love from his family."
The family filed a last-minute petition for a stay of execution and an application for a special pardon to the supreme court, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, and the standing committee of the people\'s national congress.
Shaikh, a father of three, was arrested in Urumqi in September 2007 and charged with drug smuggling. After being convicted he lost a final appeal last week, but campaigners claim his mental illness has not been taken into account.
The anti-death-penalty organisation Reprieve said it had medical evidence that Shaikh believed he was going to China in 2007 to record a hit single that would usher in world peace.
It said he was duped into carrying as suitcase packed with heroin on a flight from Tajikistan to Urumqi.
As the hours counted down to his execution, witnesses gave more evidence of Shaikh\'s strange behaviour in the past.
Paul Newberry, a British national who lives in Poland, described how Shaikh lived in a fantasy world.
"He had no money but was never desperate for it. He was clearly not desperate enough to smuggle heroin to China," he said.
Gareth Saunders, a British teacher and musician, said it would have been "totally typical of him to fall for some kind of story that some drug dealer might spin to him concerning making his record in China".
Dr Martin Harris, Shaikh\'s GP, also contacted the charity and said any involvement with drug smuggling would be "totally out of character". Shaikh\'s daughter Leilla Horsnell said the decision to keep her father\'s fate from him until 24 hours before the scheduled execution on "humanitarian grounds" was positive because of his mental state.
She told the BBC: "I don\'t think him being told would mean anything … if anything, it might make it worse if he was aware of what was happening."
If the sentence is carried out, it would be the first time an EU national has been executed in China for 50 years.
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said Europe had to step up pressure against China and the US against the death penalty. "This only confirms China\'s appalling human rights record and how far the international campaign against the death penalty needs to go," he said.
A vigil to raise awareness of his plight is taking place in London today outside the Chinese embassy in central London.
A spokesman for the embassy said Shaikh had been found with more than 4kg of heroin, which he said was enough to kill 26,800 people. Being caught with 50g of heroin was enough for the death penalty to be applied in Chinese law, he said. "Even in the UK, he would be punished severely for his crime," the spokesman said. British concerns had "been duly noted", he said.
There was little sympathy for Shaikh in China, but there was resentment in some quarters at Britain\'s perceived attempt to interfere. Jia Qinggao, deputy chief of the school of international relations at Peking University, accused the UK and other wealthy nations of double standards.
"When governments in the west turn down China\'s request for extradition of suspects, they cite the importance of judicial independence and a separation of powers," he told the Global Times. "But when it comes to their own citizens, they ask the Chinese government to interfere with judicial independence."
There was little online discussion of the case. Most tweets and blogs were in favour of carrying out the death penalty.
"If Akmal was reprieved, it would set an example that would encourage psychopaths from all over the world to gather in China and sell that lucrative white powder," wrote a blogger with the name Pet Show Killer on the Tianya internet news forum.
A single message of support, headed "Pay silence tribute to brother Akmal Shaikh", was deleted.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec[...]-briton-akmal-shaikh-execution
