CHINA EXECUTES 64 DRUG SUSPECTS

SHANGHAI, China - China marked U.N. anti-drug day by executing 64 people
accused of drug crimes, officials and state media said Wednesday.

Many of the executions on Tuesday and Wednesday came immediately after
public rallies where thousands watched judges condemn the accused.

China usually marks International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit
Trafficking on June 26 with a wave of publicized executions, underscoring
authorities' belief that harsh punishments are an effective weapon against
the spread of drugs. Officials from the United Nations have said they do
not condone the practice.

An additional 188 people also accused of drug crimes were given prison
terms of up to life at the rallies.

The largest number of executions came in the southwestern city of
Chongqing, where 24 people were shot Wednesday for drug crimes, according
to the official Xinhua News Agency. The report said most of those executed
were found guilty of trafficking heroin.

Executions in China are usually by gunshot to the back of the head or
through the heart.

In Shanghai, three men were executed after being condemned before a crowd
of about 1,000 people for smuggling heroin, "ecstasy" and crystal
methamphetamine, said a spokesman for the Shanghai Higher People's Court,
which organized the rally.

In the southwestern city of Chengdu, nine men were shot Tuesday after a
rally in which thousands cheered as police burned piles of seized heroin
and ecstasy, a state-run newspaper said.

Twenty-eight other executions were carried out in the southern and eastern
provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui, and in the capital Beijing.

Drug use was all but wiped out after the Communist Party swept to power in
1949. Dealers were shot and addicts forced to quit cold turkey. But drugs
returned with relaxed social and economic controls in the 1980s.