CHINA EXECUTES 17 DRUG TRAFFICKERS

BEIJING -- Some 17 drug traffickers were executed Saturday in China's
southwestern Chongqing and eastern Shanghai municipalities to mark
International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, state
media reported. The Chongqing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court
sentenced 16 criminals to death on charges of drug trafficking in a
public trial Saturday, Xinhua news agency said.

Since last year the municipal public security department has cracked
down on 30 heroin-smuggling cases, arresting 5,450 suspects and
seizing a total of 135.5 kilograms of heroin.

In Shanghai, 78 people convicted of drug-related crimes were
punished.

Among them was Lin Shengfu, a native of Haikou City, capital of south
China's Hainan province, who was executed for smuggling some 1.8
kilograms of heroin from Myanmar in the May 2003, Xinhua reported.

China executed at least 18 people Friday, 12 of them for drug
trafficking and six for murder, Xinhua reported.

Drug use in China has risen dramatically in recent years as the
economy has developed and the country has opened up wider to the
world. In response, the government launched a five-month crackdown
campaign against trafficking in April.

China annually executes more people than the rest of the world
combined but maintains the number it puts to death as a closely held
state secret.

Earlier this year a delegate to the National People's Congress,
China's parliament, estimated that up to 10,000 criminals were
executed every year.

Pressure groups including the New York-based Human Rights, say up to
15,000 people are executed in China every year.