China executed four Canadians for drug-related offences earlier this year, according to the Canadian authorities. The four – whose identities are being withheld – were dual citizens.
A report earlier this month from Harm Reduction International (HRI) said that 2024 was the ‘deadliest year’ for drug-related executions in a decade, with 615 known executions carried out worldwide. However, the agency stressed that the figure excludes the ‘hundreds – if not thousands’ of executions carried out in countries like China, North Korea and Vietnam, where state censorship means that realistic figures are unobtainable.
While China is second only to Iran as the ‘world’s biggest executioner for drug offences’, according to HRI, a report from Amnesty International says it remains the world’s leading executioner overall, and is believed to have executed ‘thousands of people’ in 2023.
Another Canadian citizen, Robert Schellenberg, was sentenced to 15 years for drug trafficking by China in 2018, which was then amended to a death sentence the following year. While the Chinese authorities later upheld the death sentence despite an appeal, he was not among the four people executed earlier this year.
‘These shocking and inhumane executions of Canadian citizens by Chinese authorities should be a wake-up call for Canada,’ said secretary general of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section Ketty Nivyabandi. ‘We are devastated for the families of the victims, and we hold them in our hearts as they try to process the unimaginable. Our thoughts also go to the loved ones of Canadian citizens whom China is holding on death row or whose whereabouts in the Chinese prison system are unknown. They deserve answers and justice, not the sickening worry they have been subjected to because of years of separation and uncertainty.’
The death penalty for drug offences: global overview 2024 available here
Death sentences and executions in 2023 available here